Transformers Genesis
by Dark Angel Dragon
Summary: TF fan fic, G1 based, sci fi/fantasy type story. The TFs of Cybertron discover they arent the only TFs on Earth, and that there is a more out there than they thought, not just from Cybertron. This is not your average TF story, very different.
1. Chapter 1 More Than Meets The Eye

In The Beginning

More than Meets The Eye

It was just after noon in New York City, on a clear sunny day in late June, 2015. In a cosy little cafe in Central Park West, a small group of women sit and chat, although they are much more than they seem. They had been given the day off and had chosen to rest and relax in New York City.

"So Stella, did ye ever get tha' heat regulator thingy o' mine finished this mornin' or what?" A Scottish redheaded woman asked from across the table.

"At this present time, it is not yet ready." answered a young blonde Englishwoman.

The redhead decided to order another round of food and drinks, and then makes a quick glance at a pink haired Cajun woman, as if to ask, _'do you have a problem?'_

"Again wit' dat stuff! Ugh, give me energon any day. Ya know Rusty, if ya not be havin' dat organic food processor built into ya Biomode shell, ya might actually look good, but no, ya be a big, fat and ugly overgrown mechanoid cow." Her name was Casey or CJ for short.

Rusty looked menacingly over at CJ. "Lass, ye lucky I'm so starvin' righ' now, otherwise I'd be cleanin' ye clock from here te Delta Six an' back again, ye pint sized pink pansey." She raised her fist as if to start a fight.

"I be likin' ta see ya try Rusty, would ya be wantin' to show off in front of all da humans now eh? Besides ya always be hungry!"

Rusty realized that CJ was right, the team had standing orders not to exert themselves in front of the humans for any reason, but to remain hidden, not that she was one to follow orders anyway, but she was in enough trouble from their boss anyway. At least that's what their orders were from their commander, who was noticeably absent from Earth, away on business to Delta Four, or so they thought.

The blonde Englishwoman, named Stella, then piped up, "Ladies, if you could please keep your decorum until we get back to the base, I would be much appreciated."

Rusty turned to her, and mockingly stated, "Who died an' made ye queen of the universe lass? O' tha's' right, mummy dearest left her fav'rite in charge of us wee bairns, di'n she Stella, am I righ'?"

Another woman was seated next to Rusty, an African-American named Felicia with a Texan accent. "Ya'll are nuts. Rusty, let it go, she cahn't help it if she's the best femmebot for the job, now can she? I know ya'll don't lahke bein' ordered about but ya'll gotta put up with it till mah sister gets back."

"Felicia is indeed correct Rhiannon, let it be. We will discuss this at another time perhaps." Stated Stella calmly.

Rusty first glared at the blonde, then pushed away Flicka's hand, which was on her shoulder, and got up to retrieve her order. A news report on a television screen behind Rusty began a story.

"Thank you most kindly for your generous words Aunt Felicia, but I think we should be listening to this." Stella motioned for all to watch the television set, for the local news bulletin.

"_Good afternoon folks, this is Arnie Grey comin' at ya from atop northern Manhattan in our sky spy chopper cam."_

Rusty took her order and then went outside to finish it, before hearing the last of the bulletin. Flicka tried to stop her, but she was pushed away.

"She's gettin' mahghty antsy about us all havin' ta hold back all tha time, ah mean hidin's just not her style. One o' these days if not soonah she's goin' ta' break our covah," Flicka said.

Stella nodded and returned her attention to the screen, where Arnie Grey continued his news bulletin. "_It seems those Decepticons are at it again folks." _ The screen showed a film of the Autobots and the Decepticons duking it out north of Central Park.

Then another woman in the group, Vanessa, who had been drinking and reading a newspaper outside, came in as Rusty was leaving, roughly pushing past the newcomer. "See ya Rusty, have fun, wherever it is you're going. Don't break anything, will ya?" She said aloud.

"Och, kiss me' tailpipe, Nessie ye headcase." Rusty said to Vanessa in a very gruff manner as she stormed off up the street, unknowingly in the direction of the fight shown on the news.

From the television: "_The Autobots are putting up a good fight now that the Police have started to evacuate the area of most of us little humans,"_ said Arnie jokingly. _"This is gonna get real heavy and expensive in the damage department when they're done."_ he added.

Seeing what was happening on the TV, Vanessa remarked without taking her optics from the action, "We goin' or not? Both the humans and the Autobots could use our help."

Stella agreed. "Yes, they most certainly will, but keep it down, alright? We do not want the humans to get suspicious and we most certainly do not want any of the Cybertronians discovering who we really are. Those are our orders from the commander, is that understood? And Vanessa no matter how much you will want to, please do not reveal yourself to your old comrades."

All nod in agreement, especially Vanessa. "Right. Vanessa, you go outside to the alleyway and transform out of your Biomode shell and into your vehicle mode." Stella then hastily left, but continued from outside. "Casey, come with me. Felicia, pay for our meal, then join us in the alley. We will pick up Rusty on the way there if she hasn't already broken our cover as I suspect she may have."

Out in the alley, a talking Van commented to Stella. "Hey boss, we won't need to pick up Rusty, she's already there. I picked her up on my scanners and it seems she wandered into the fight on her own without realising it."

"Well dat'd be a first!" said Casey surprised.

"Blast, she will break our cover, I know it. Vanguard, let's go." Stella replied.

Casey got in the back and motioned for Felicia to get in as well, as Vanguard started up.

"Felicia, move it now!" Stella yelled to Flicka, as she also jumped in the back of the van, which Vanessa, or Vanguard as she now was, left her rear door open for Felicia as she started to move out of the Alleyway.

A lone news chopper was flirting with danger so close to a mighty mechanoid melee of Autobots vs Decepticons, in the streets of New York City, northern Manhattan. They were able to get an unprecedented amount of news footage as they had dared to fly that close to the action.

"Are you sure we should be this close, boss? I mean, what if one a those Decep's decides to make us go bye bye? I mean I got a wife an' kids you know!" asked the chopper pilot.

"Yeah Arnie, I mean this is great footage and all but what if, you know? I wanna go home in one piece?" Arnie's cameraman had a worried look on his face. A stray blast shot past them from the foray below, as he voiced his concerns and anxiety; his cousin had been killed in a similar way. The Decepticon blast had been from one of them, attempting to destroy the news chopper and rid the fight of what they saw, the humans, as a nuisance.

"Nah guys; we'll be fine, I promise," replied Arnie. The cameraman and the pilot both looked at each other and shook their heads. Then the pilot spoke up again. "Now where have I heard that before?"

Just then, another stray laser blast came out of nowhere, narrowly missing the chopper. "That's it, I'm outta here!" said the pilot, as he straightened out the chopper. "I'm settin' this baby down right now and we are all goin' home; let someone else film these guys fighting for once!" And with that, the pilot set towards the top of their news building, and disappeared from view.

Meanwhile, down on the street, chaos ran amok. Blaster was currently engaged in a tussle with Ramjet on the ground, after having knocked him out of the sky with his electro scrambler gun, temporarily damaging his flight components.

"So Ramjet, not so tough, huh? You gotta dance to my sweet tunes now!" commented Blaster.

Groggy and dizzy from being shot with Blaster's gun, Ramjet slowly came back online to see who it was that had shot him from the sky, only to look up and see Blaster standing over him. He got to his feet and replied, "C'mere, you over grown beat box, so I can beat you into tempered slag."

"Don't knock the beat till you feel the heat!" replied Blaster laughing, as he put his gun away, only to continue with a fierce hand to hand melee with the Decepticon soldier.

A few streets away, Hot Rod and the twin brothers, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, were chasing the Stunticons in high gear.

Meanwhile, Rusty unknowingly wandered right into the area where the Autobots were fighting. And right into the path of the Decepticon called Wild Rider. He had just sped around the corner of a street to get away from Hot Rod, who was close on his tail, and who in turn had Motor Master on his.

Not caring about the human in front of him, Wild Rider commented, "Oh look! A fleshling speed bump."

He increased his speed and aimed straight for Rusty, only to be surprised as she catapulted herself over him and right into Hot Rod's path, "Oh slag!" commented Rusty as she saw Hot Rod crash into a fire hydrant in an attempt to avoid her.

Wild Rider continued his driving, laughing like a maniac at Hot Rod's predicament. Rusty, who had now recovered her bearings, had Motor Master bearing down on her before she was able to check on Hot Rod, and in a split second, she engaged her ram bolts to stop him dead in his treads. Motor Master not caring at all about the human in front of him, and well possessed of his own superiority just kept going and sped up. But he was knocked offline from the damage of hitting Rusty full on, as he thought that was what he had hit, was just an ordinary human; when in fact, she was not normal. Rusty had super strong reinforced armour; she could survive almost any impact with it. Including a head on collision with the leader of the Stunticons. Dead End and Breakdown zoomed past, oblivious to their leader's predicament.

As Drag Strip drove by, he said mockingly, "Well I guess I'm the better one of us both after all, eh fearless leader?" He continued to drive away, laughing all the while. Motor Master just sat there in the middle of the road, motionless and unable to reply to Drag Strip's retort and also unable to move.

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe then pull up surprised to se the condition Motor Master is in and then see Hot Rod, who had just recovered from the dizziness of his crash into a hydrant.

He slowly gets up and comments, "You know, I could of sworn there was a human in the middle of the road a moment ago, she was just there," Hot Rod said to the twins, pointing to Motor Master's caved in front grill. "Right in the middle of the street, she jumped right over Wild Rider and I had to swerve to avoid her, and crashed...but?" Puzzled, Hot Rod rubbed his sore head.

Sunstreaker said with a smirk, "Well, maybe you're just imagining things, seeing as how you like humans so much?"

The twins helped Hot Rod up, and then looked at the damage to Motor Master's front end. It was like he had hit a tree, and his entire front end had been caved in, to a human-sized dent.

At that moment, Rusty had gotten her bearings back again, and had begun to get herself out of the trucks' damaged chassis. "Well, I suppose they jus' don't make 'em like they used te," she said jokingly, not noticing the three Autobots staring at her. She was amused that she had not a scratch on her, but her clothes were ruined and cut up. She noticed the three Autobots and said smiling, "Hi!" Rusty looked up at them. She stopped for a moment and looked luridly at Sideswipe and winked.

He in turn wasn't fazed by the action but looked at his brother to ascertain a meaning to the gesture. Sunstreaker just shrugged. "I suppose ye wonderin' how I survived tha'?" She motioned to the damaged truck. "Well, don' s'pose t'is nae point in hidin' nae more!"

The three were confused as to what she meant, until they see her transform from a human and into a tall and bulky, red and black armoured, Autobot female.

"Whoah!" commented Sideswipe, with a smirk on his face, "That's one tall femmebot!" Burnout was indeed tall. Even though she had a sports car alt mode she stood at least a full head taller than Hot Rod and the twins, and looked very heavily armoured by the looks of her.

Sunstreaker added jokingly. "And here I thought humans weren't good for anything... except maybe Pretender shells!"

Burnout smirks at Sunstreaker's comment and adds, "Ye havnae seen nothin' yet ladd!"

Jazz, Mirage and Cliffjumper were pinned down, and with the other Autobots elsewhere, they were finding it hard to do anything to help relieve their situation. They were currently under heavy fire from Thrust, Dirge, and Soundwave.

Mirage turned to Jazz and said, "We can't hold out like this for much longer."

"And as much as I hate to agree with you Mirage, you may be right, but our Auto-buddies'll show up." says Jazz.

Soundwave had ejected Ravage, Laserbeak and Rumble, but this had left him open to attack.

Cliffjumper nailed Soundwave with his Glass Gas gun. "Ha ha!" he exclaimed excitedly, "Got one! Now to get more of 'em!" Cliffjumper jumped out from their cover and transformed, raced down the street and managed to knock Ravage and Rumble out of the way.

Mirage then took the opportunity to use his abilities to disappear leaving Jazz on his own. Having nothing better to do right now, Jazz decided to provide cover for his friend Cliffjumper.

Back down the street, Vanguard, with Felicia, Stella and Casey in tow, had arrived just in time to see Rusty transform into her robot mode as Burnout. Stella eyed off Burnout as she got out of Vanguard's front seat. Burnout explained what happened. Stella was not the slightest bit impressed.

"It still does not change the fact that you disobeyed direct orders and broke cover, Burnout, and..." Stella broke off, as she noticed a silver-haired figure atop a nearby roof.

'_Don't worry about Stella, just do what you have to do'_ said the figure.

'_As you wish Commander Drake'_ replies Stella.

Before the female figure started to fade out, she adds, _'Stella, be sure not to use anything but your car mode ok. I don't want them seeing anything else right now.'_

After she disappears Stella sighs. The others turned to see who it was but miss who it was Stella was looking at. Although they had said several things it had only been a short moment. "New orders; cover has been broken, and now that we are in the open, we fight." Bellows Stella.

The others are quite happy with this, and don't bother to hide their enthusiasm. "Casey, Felicia, you go and help the humans and see if you can find out why the Decepticons are here; take Quarterback and Quicksilver with you," Stella ordered, "but leave Hawkeye, Nightshade and Dog Fight with us." Stella knew what animecha partners Felicia had with her as she had seen which ones she had stored away before they left their base earlier in the day, that and she had been playing with them in Central Park earlier with their holomodes on.

Felicia ejected the animechs from her system through light fixtures in her hands, and they came online as their forms materialized into solid metal masses. "Gotcha," replied Felicia. She and Casey mounted up and raced away on Quarterback and Quicksilver, leaving a hawk, a large dog and cat behind.

"Burnout, Vanguard, you're with me," said Stella.

Sideswipe looked at the white van with the Autobot insignia as Vanguard transformed, and wondered to himself, _'Vanguard?' _He pulls his brother aside and asks him, "Hey wasn't that the name of Trailbreaker's little sister?"

Sunstreaker replies, "You idiot, I don't want to know why you brought that up and nor do I care."

"I'm in, boss!" said Vanguard to Stella, and raced off with Burnout and Hot Rod, who reverted back to her vehicle mode and followed close behind.

Sideswipe was just on the verge of leaving. "You coming, bro?" he asked his brother.

Sunstreaker raised his hand as if to say, _'wait a minute'_, and then asked Stella, "Well, I suppose you must be just human, since you haven't done anything yet, or do we have to carry you to the battle, hmm?"

Stella looked up at him and said not a word. Sunstreaker was baffled by this, but didn't show it. She pressed a device on her left wrist with her right hand and then transformed into a tall, slim, beautiful, white femme. She checked her weapons systems and various other items and programs on her wrist guards then turns to the twins and says, "My designation is Sunstar." Then she transforms and drives off after the others.

"Whoa bro, a mech who's better looking than even you!" Sideswipe teased jokingly.

Sunstreaker only pretended to not be affected by what his brother said, but even he couldn't help but notice how better looking Sunstar was. "As if anyone could compete with my good looks!"

The twins also transformed and followed, as Sideswipe added, "There's femmebots coming outta the mechworks today!"

Jazz sighted the arrival of his comrades, as well as the females with them, and wondered who they were. "What the..?" he commented amusingly.

Hot Rod said, "Look what we found lying around the place!" as he motioned to the new arrivals.

Sunstar drove right past and set her sights on the jets, Dirge and Thrust. She rammed Ramjet while in still in vehicle mode, and then she transforms to her robot made and takes off after the other two still on the ground, dispensing them with ease.

Blaster, relieved at a break in the fighting, turned his sights to Soundwave, who had only just recovered from Cliffjumper's Glass Gas. "Care to dance, Decepti-crumb?" he said mockingly.

Soundwave replied, "Anytime." and then the two of them began to tear up the street with their sonic blasts.

Vanguard covers her audio sensors and says jokingly, "Almost makes me wish Sound Track was here!"

Cliffjumper rejoined Jazz, wondering who the newcomers were as he eyed them with suspicion. Mirage also turns up from nowhere as usual and joins his comrades after dispensing a Decepticon from his stealth mode.

Sideswipe said, "We brought some extra help. Don't know who they are or where they're from, but we brought 'em anyway. They're Autobots apparently?"

Burnout turned away from the group of Autobots to notice the four remaining Stunticons close by, who had just turned up again, and she said, "Oh good, ye have punchin' bags in this gym." She clicks her fingers joints like cracking her knuckles and glares at them menacingly.

They notice her but aren't fazed. Wild Rider yells out, "Bring it on Auto-bitch!"

Burnout raises her brow and smirks at the Decepticon, "As ye wish ladd!" She starts running towards them, then catapults herself of a piece of torn up road and slams herself hard into the ground, using her fist to cause an earthquake that shakes everything in the immediate vicinity, and shaking those Decepticons to the ground. "Thought I'd shake 'em up a bit!" she says amusingly to herself, hoping someone would hear her great feat.

Felicia's three animechs went straight for Soundwave's minions; Nightshadow against Ravage, Dog Fight helping Steeljaw against Rumble, and Hawkeye setting her sights on Laserbeak.

The Decepticon however, found it hard to keep up with, or even catch, the fast and agile mech hawk. She dashed here and there avoiding every shot Laserbeak fired at her, some only missing by mere microns, and some even singeing her metal feathers. She eventually dodged the fire enough to lead Laserbeak right into the oncoming fire of his cohorts, right into Laserbeak's sight, downing the metal Vulture.

Dog Fight, a seasoned pit fighter mech from this group of three was having immense fun. He hadn't been in a fight for a while, only content to be Felicia's pet as they wouldn't let the champ fighter participate in any pit Fights any more due to his grand winning streak. He got close enough to Rumble and when he was distracted by Steeljaw, leapt up and grabbed Rumble by the throat area. No matter how much the Decepticon tried to break free he couldn't get the dog to let go. Dog Fight only let go when several of Rumble's fellow soldiers started firing weapons blasts at him, but by then the damage was done, Rumble's neck was ripped wide open. When he was satisfied with his work he quietly pranced along with his tail wagging to another Decepticon target.

Ravage was not particularly enjoying his prey. She was every bit as skilful and talented in combat as he was, not that he'd ever admit that. He lost sight of her several times, only to become frustrated, and then getting caught offguard when she pounced on him from nowhere. She continually dodged his attacks till at last she just sat there upright like a playful little kitten would and dared him to attack her without her retaliating. But each and every time she dodged and he became more frustrated than ever.

The twins and Cliffjumper joined Burnout to fight the Stunticons, and made short work of them, as did Sunstar and Vanguard with the jets as they both made sure the seekers were permanently grounded. But no one had noticed the entrance of Blitzwing. He targeted the Autobot group, and proceeded to fire on every Autobot he could see, getting a square shot at Burnout and tossing her clear across the street, but without so much as a scratch. "Is tha' the best ye got ladd?" she says when she gets up.

And Astrotrain, who had just retrieved Motor Master and was a little late to arrive, started loading up the other Decepticons who were wounded. Both Vanguard and Burnout helped to protect everyone from the blasts; Vanguard with her super shields, and Burnout with her diamond hard chassis.

"Just like old times, eh, Jazz?" said Vanguard.

Jazz looked at her, finding her familiar. But for a moment he recognizes her and knows something isn't quite right. "No, it can't be... Vanguard?"

Mirage turned to look, as Cliffjumper added, "What? You mean Trailbreaker's crazy little sister who we declared dead?"

Vanguard nodded. Jazz looked her up and down laughing all the while. "It can't be you; I mean you're still..."

"Alive, yeah... had a little accident in the Delta system when I arrived there... got given a new body shell," Vanguard said with a smile. "This new armour suits me better, but the voice is still the same don't you think?"

"I'll say," added Cliffjumper laughing his vocalisers off. When he was done he turned serious. "But it still doesn't let you get away with deserting your responsibilities. You're still an Autobot soldier, and why in the Infernal Pit didn't you come back, we could've used you during the war?"

Vanguard smiled at Cliffjumper, and gives him a friendly punch on the shoulder. "I had my reasons, which I'll tell you guys another time ok, but right now," pointing to the Decepticons firing at them, "We better take care of these guys, eh Cliff'? By the way it's great to see you all again!"

Cliffjumper sighed, and shook her hand as it was offered. In doing so, Vanguard lost her concentration for a moment, and with her shield down, a blast hit Burnout in the back as she turned, and slammed into the wall right against Sideswipe, face to face. Blaster had a good laugh at her current position as well as Sideswipe's. "Lookin' for a girlfriend are ya 'Swipes?".

Sideswipe commented back, "Yeah they're all just droppin' at my peds for the chance!"

Burnout commented to Sideswipe with a smirk, "Hope I'm not imposin,' lad."

Sideswipe, however, could not contain his amusement and answers, "Nah, you're welcome to any time lil' lady!"

Sunstreaker laughed his head off at his twin bother. And then joins him.

Vanguard hearing what Sideswipe said, "Geez! Little? Burnout is anything but!"

Burnout moved and glared at Vanguard as she got up. And with the shields down, Sunstar took the opportunity to attack Blitzwing with her solar cannon. Blitzwing transformed into his jet mode, barely getting away after he'd taken too many blasts from her weapon and had decided to retreat instead.

Sideswipe commented jokingly to his brother, "Not only does she look better than you, bro', she fights better, too!" He laughed.

Sunstreaker glared at him with his cold optic stare. "Now it's your turn to shut up." And punches Sideswipe across the jaw.

With the Decepticons gone, the mechs relaxed a little. "I'm wonderin' what that lot was after?" Vanguard said. "From what I remember of them, it can't be anything good!" She was busy helping Burnout and Jazz keep the twins apart also.

Just then, Casey and Felicia showed up, and dismounted from their mechanical horses. At least they were mechanical on the inside. Their holo emitters covered them nicely and made them look like for all the world, ordinary horses to everyone else.

Casey stated, "Dey be after dat new prototype energy converter de humans be working on 'ere." She pointed to an old building. "Dey be keeping it 'ere till tomorrow, til' dey ship it to a military facility."

"Good old Casey; always knows everythin' before even we do!" said Felicia jokingly, as she returned her animech to her storage unit. "Now ah now whah tha boss gave ya tha comms officer job!"

Casey smirked, and then continued, "I got de info from one o' dose officers back dere where we were. De humans'r just as easy ta charm as de mechs bein' ya know!"

Sunstar commented, "We will have to make a report of this when we get back to base," unaware that Sunstreaker was looking at her. As they met optics, he looked away from her, but Vanguard saw him looking, and snickered.

She nudged Sunstar, and told her, "Well I guess 'Streaker still isn't used to other mechs being better lookin' than him!" Sunstar looked at her confused. "Forget it Stella, you won't ever get it, will you?" With that Vanguard walked off, but not far.

Sunstar had moved away from the group and was waiting quietly off to one side for them to come along.

Felicia had recalled her animecha and resumed her Autobot form. Blaster had started to ask her about how she stored them away if they weren't part of her like his partners were, but all she did was smile and wink at him. She did a complex series of fancy dance moves and transformed into her vehicle mode, a red Porsche. "Tha name's Flashdance ya'll, remember it. C'mon Casey, ya'll gettin' in or whaht?" She opened her drivers side door for the pink haired dark skinned human with the Cajun accent.

Casey was disinclined to show her mecha form to them as she wasn't an Autobot; she had been told not to show her mecha form outside their base. "I be ridin' wit' Burnout."

"Anyway boys, it's been nice seein' you all again. Don't call us, we'll call you, ok?" Vanguard calls out as she presses a warp gate activation device on her wrist.

Sunstar waited by the gate as they went through one by one.

First Flashdance in a flashy show of light emitters on her vehicle chassis.

Then shortly followed by Vanguard, who had by then said her goodbyes to her old friends and transforms into her vehicle mode and drives through the gate.

Sunstar was still waiting patiently for the last two. Burnout and Casey. Burnout had been cleaning herself off at a fire hydrant that had been smashed open in the fight. As she passed Sideswipe she winked at him. Then transformed and opened her door for Casey. She promptly got in and Burnout smoked her rear tyres showing off and rocketed herself through the gate.

Sunstar walked backwards through the gate bowing to the Cybertronian Autobots as she did so and disappeared from view.

When they had gone Jazz exclaims, "Well it certainly has been an interesting day, hasn't it!"

"I'll say!" responds Hot Rod.

"Now I suppose we'll be staying to help the humans clean up?" asks Sunstreaker, "The least those femmebots could've done was to stay and help."

"Why so you could look at them some more?" retorts his twin brother.

Sunstreaker ignores him and says to Jazz, "I suppose you haven't yet noticed that Mirage is missing?"

"Probably followed those femmebots through their warp gate. He had plenty of time to disappear and do that." Comments Cliffjumper, "I'm glad I'm not the one who has to make the report to Prime, eh Jazz?" Cliffjumper starts snickering.

Jazz playfully slaps him on the shoulder joint and says, "Well that's ok buddy, I am the team leader after all. And it was so good of you to volunteer to help me type that report!" They both start laughing. "Hopefully Mirage will report in to home base with any info he would've gotten from the femmebots."

"If that is where he went?" Comments Cliffjumper.

Jazz gets the group organised and they all start helping the humans who have just started coming back into the area, to clean up the mess in the street from the fight with the Decepticons.

Back at the femmebots base in Washington State, they had arrived home.

Burnout was the first to comment on the day's action. "Now tha's the kind o' rough stuff I been waitin' fer," she said excitedly. "Nae more hidin' behind these human shells, we can join the others in their fun now." She sighed. "I'm gonna go have a hot oil bath in me' quarters," and turned to leave.

Vanguard had also gone somewhere, most likely off to her private quarters.

But Sunstar, Flashdance and Casey remained near the wall where they had made their entrance with the warp gate, and then the three started walking towards their recreation room.

"Somethin' botherin' ya'll Stella?" asks Flash'. Sunstar had in the meantime reverted to her Biomode and was conversing with Casey. Flashdance shortly followed suit.

Stella looks around for a bit then says, "I am sure it is nothing."

Casey commented, "We only 'ope she be right, but dat only bein' a momentary allowance on de boss lady's part." She turned to Stella and continued, "Am I bein' right, is dat who you be seein' when we be in town?"

Stella turned to Casey and replied, "Yes." Casey had transformed to her mech form Joyride and run off ahead of the both of them after she'd noticed the return of Sound Track to the base from her mission on Delta Prime. Once she was out of site Stella turns to Felicia and says, "That something was, that I sensed someone else come through the gate with us."

"Oh that! Ya'll needn't worry 'bout that, it's only Mirage!" She chuckled a moment, not realising that Mirage himself was watching them quietly in his stealth mode not too far away and listening intently, "Ah saw him come through that warp gate alrahght, rahght aftah ah came through. He's an Autobot, what harm could he do here now that they know we exist?"

"I suppose you are right." Stella says flatly and she wanders off to join Joyride, where ever it is she had gotten to.

When Felicia was alone she started talking to herself, "Well ah don't know about y'all, but ah'm gonna go get me some energon from the bar," she remarked, "Y'all are welcome to join us, Mirage!"

Mirage, overcome with a little shock that they had known he was there the whole time, turned off his stealth and faced her. He asked Felicia, "How can you see me while I'm in my stealth mode?"

"Ya'll ain't the only one who can use lahght ta disappear!" She giggled. She reverts back to her Autobot robot mode and demonstrates, disappearing then reappearing once again. Then she beckons him to follow, "C'mon ah'll introduce ya'll ta everyone else." With that he follows her to another section of their base.


	2. Chapter 2 Dark Designs

In The Beginning

Dark Designs

It had been eons since she had been fully awake like this. Not since the time of the war against the Alliance, thirty million cycles ago had she been conscious. And not since it was her own flesh and blood, her niece of all people who had turned out to be the chosen one that would be her downfall, and the one to seal her within this infernal prison.

She got herself up from the rocky outcrop that was her tomb in this place of limbo, and stretched out her powers as far as she could reach. The darkness had gone, all but eliminated, but for one little spark she could still feel 'outside'. She could no longer feel the close presence of her beloved Deukalion, but she did feel the close presence of somebody else, a somebody who was not afraid, who delved into the dark reaches of his own mind and took what he wanted for his own.

This made her smile; another kindred spirit, just as strong, powerful and ambitious as her own. And best of all, he had within him the dark spark, part of the essence belonging to her beloved Deukalion. She wondered how he came across it, and then realized her beloved may have chosen a new herald at some stage while she had been gone. She smiled; this one was still naïve and unknown to his true potential.

'_I will remedy that soon enough.'_ she thought. And she knew she would be the one to bring it out, but she needed time to bind him to her will, if that was at all possible; this one would be difficult, very difficult to tame. She could sense his mind, the mere presence of it made her feel slightly excited, wanting to embrace it and tame this dark power within him. But most important of all, he could provide her with an anchor to the outside world so that she could work her power and forge her way out of this prison.

She looked around her prison and at the confines of her state of limbo. She also looked at herself. Once again she was without a body but still managed to retain a form, a semblance of a humanoid image of living dark energy. She knew that once again she must find a way out of her prison and find her ever loyal mechanoid Deathstrike, wondering where it would be right now. She pressed the power of her mind hard against the weakest point she could finding this prison, with all the strength she could muster. Time had made this prison's walls weaker. _'There,'_ she thought to herself, _'Now that's the first step over and done with. Now to go and find my precious darklings.'_

This time around she had not been imprisoned again with her precious brood that were known to her and most of her old enemies as the Necromancers. A vicious bunch of alien metamorphic techno-organic creatures; the representation of the very worst the Cybredian species could be, made with genetic engineering. This time her darklings were incarcerated in suspended animation somewhere within the confines of the Alliance military. But she would be with them again.

She had taken a few, way back when in her time, of the best Cybredian specimens she could find and she imbued them all with her dark power, maxing out their physical structures beyond what their species could handle and turning them into something different and using all the science of genetic engineering she had at her disposal to fix them that way. They were all male and in the times of loneliness she quite often used them for her own brood, bedding them as she saw fit. Nowadays she had been without a body for a long time and could not enjoy the pleasures of the physical life she once had. And so she set out to find herself a willing host, or perhaps if she was lucky, her old host, as it may still yet live in the form of Deathstrike.

At one stage she had managed to project her mind outside this prison in order to try and obtain certain secrets from a Bioroid base on Earth, but that had been a drastic failure, and her precious Deathstrike had been locked away.

Once again outside in the real world after she had forced her power levels down to zero, she turned to look at what had been her prison, a black hole. _'How inventive,'_ she thought, _'but there is no one who can make a prison strong enough to hold a will the likes that I have. No one, not even you Ellane Duragano, if indeed you are still operating. Once I find you I will exact my revenge on you and be done with you permanently.'_ She laughed amusingly. Then she sped her immortal spirit towards her new destination.

First she would visit someone else before she freed her Necromancers or obtain Deathstrike and gain a valuable ally. Or at least someone who was only valuable to her till he lived out his usefulness.

Back on Earth, Ella Drake was resting offline in her personal quarters at the Dragon Mountain Military Base, deep below the surface, where she and the other Transformers from the Delta system were currently abiding secretly away from the humans and Cybertronians on Earth.

She came online with a start. Thinking for just a nanosecond that she had felt something; just a little something, she had not felt in a very long time.

She thought she had heard someone call her old name; a name that had hardly been used in almost 30 millions years. Only those who knew her true identity ever called her that and not very many knew she even existed at all, regarding her existence as a mere myth. No one in the Alliance of planets had ever believed anyone could live for more than a few thousand years unless you were fully mechanoid, but even then they didn't live forever either.

She was older than 30 million years now, way older and every thousand years she reformatted her system to adapt to everything she had learnt anew up till that point. She wasn't a full machine, but rather a highly advanced biomechanical techno-organic stand alone system. All she knew was that she was an individual with a purpose; a purpose that quite often led to her sacrificing herself and a few individuals around her just to save the many and keep certain things going around her.

She had great power and it was often the responsibility and the lack of freedom that went along with that power that sometimes annoyed her, took away her right to have a normal life. Most of the time she felt more like a tool than a free thinking individual.

When the impression had passed, when she thought she had only imagined her name being called, she went back to her rest cycle, and let her mind drift off to long ago during the war, and also to thoughts of her beloved husband Rodine.

Two female Transformers on the base beneath Ella Drake's home had been going over some data entries and also conversing about their return from the Delta system.

They had been on a mission for Ella once again and had to retrieve a precious cargo that Ella had been given charge of, despite it not being her choice.

It happened to be a prisoner that had been causing some trouble amongst the residents of a Transformers settlement within the Delta system, on Delta Nine to be exact, an area that was often frequented by Decepticons and other mechanoids of the criminal persuasion.

The individual had been trying to lead an uprising to take over the present establishment on one of the outlying planets. He had succeeded to a part but had gotten himself captured and then put on trial. None of the Delta Nine residents really cared that he was gone; they just went back to their normal business, as usual, and forgot about the ambitious and pretentious upstart.

At the trial, which these two Earth side Transformers had attended, and after some negotiations, Ella had to take him into her care as he had invoked an age old honour she could not refuse. She really didn't have a choice, someone had told the prisoner to mention her name in a special circumstance to get him out of going to jail. She had had to go along with it ruefully, till she found out who the individual was. Now that she once again had this individual in her possession, she'd be unlikely to ever let him out of her site again, as he possessed the same soul mind as one of her long deceased sons.

The two individuals, Freefall and Sound Track had put their unconscious prisoner in stasis repair. Ella had requested that he immediately be upgraded from his old Cybertronian form with its F111 Eagle alternate mode to what they commonly used the technology that the Bioroids were accustomed to. Ella needed him for what was to come.

Once they had finished with the prisoner, they returned to their ship to start unpacking their supplies. That was when they noticed the return of their comrades from their day out on the town.

Sound Track had to contend with her younger sister Joyride giving her a blow by blow chat about the entire day, as she usually did. She was tired and wanted to sit back and relax, but she just let her sister rave on.

Freefall on the other hand just snickered in her mind at Sound Track's predicament and returned to the medical bay area to oversee the transformation of the prisoner.

Once Freefall had left Sound Track conversed with her sister for a bit. "Ok, ya'll can tell me whaht happened later Casey, ah'm just tired and not in tha mood ta listen alrahght. Ah'm goin' down to tha rec room if any o' ya'll 're wantin' me ok."

She leaves the shuttle bay and her sister behind and heads for some relaxation elsewhere on the base. Casey follows quickly behind, not wanting to be forgotten and left out.

Downstairs, elsewhere on the base, and earlier in the day, a young individual was in the medical bay getting an overhaul. She was in for her monthly upgrades and being attended to by her Aunt Gail.

Her own mother had been a brilliant scientist and her father a military soldier. Her mother had been the one to engineer a program from borrowed alien technology, namely Bioroid technology that the US government had gotten hold of.

Her daughter Laura had been sick from cancer from when she was very young, and the US government military had wanted Dr Rayleigh Banks to make it into a cybernetic super serum that once injected into the human body would make the super soldiers that they could use in the military. She had objected to this and instead, using her brilliant intelligence to change the nanyte technology to target and utilize cancer cells within an individual for that purpose.

The process had been incomplete however, as years ago in a fight between Autobots and Decepticons, Laura's mother had been killed and the information wiped from her hard drives in the event of her death. This was much to the chagrin of her father who wanted the technology his wife was working on for the military to help fight the Decepticons. Laura had been receiving the prototype treatments. It had saved her life from ever dying of cancer, but it had also turned her completely into a synthetic machine, a complete human Cyborg. It was her family secret; her father knew but even he wouldn't let the military use his daughter as a soldier.

The other problem was, that Ella had helped Dr. Banks with the experiment under secrecy and loaned her some cybernetic DNA from an actual Autobot to allow Laura to survive the conversion process completely.

Even though a teenager in high school now, Laura's Cybernetic systems had begun to change and evolve as she came of age and needed to be watched more than ever, and get upgrades on a more regular basis.

The upgrades did not take very long, and being that it was a Sunday afternoon before school went back for the week; Laura went and joined her friends at the local mall to hang out for the afternoon. As far as anyone even knew she was receiving treatments for her old cancerous condition from years ago.

Elsewhere in town, outside a local shopping centre, a young woman named Laura was having a late afternoon lunch with her friends, while watching the New York news report from the TV sets of a local store.

"Wow, did you see those luscious femmes the Autobots have on their team?" Ryan commented excitedly.

"No we didn't, Ry," replied Christine, in a dry tone. "We womenfolk have better things to do than drool over femmes like you do!" Christine had not looked at the screen at all. Ryan had only caught a small glimpse of them, but it hadn't taken Laura long to recognise the femmes at all. They were her friends, ones she had often seen in and around the interior of the hidden underground Dragon Mountain Base where she often got her treatments.

Laura smiled at this comment before taking a sip of her coffee. She had seen the earlier news break when the first helicopter left the scene, but had only just caught the action of the battle from another news network.

She had seen some other friends in this battle too. Burnout, Sunstar, Vanguard, and some of Flashdance's animecha. She knew who they were, but Ryan and Christine did not. Her friends just thought they were new Autobot recruits, and she was glad no one had captured them in their biomodes, to recognize them in their human forms and faces.

All they knew about her family was that her aunt and uncle worked on the local Dragon Valley Military Base, and that they weren't allowed in. Her aunt and Uncle worked at the base to keep Ella and the others apprised of what the Earth Military was up to.

They also didn't know that Laura had been in another base, an underground one, but was sworn to secrecy. She felt guilty that she had to hide the Deltronians from her friends, especially since they were big fans of the Autobots, and what they were doing to protect the planet. She knew that Ryan and Christine had become tech students at high school to join the EDC, so they'd have the chance to work with the Autobots one day. But that day may come sooner than Laura thought.

She, however, had just gotten another of her usual headaches even though she had just had an upgrade that morning. _'It's all part of being an imperfect human.'_ she thought, _'but then again, I stopped being human ages ago.' _Her friends didn't know this about her either. They didn't know that their best friend was in fact a machine. She had to inject herself with certain chemicals at some times, and her friends just thought she was diabetic, or that she was till suffering from the same sickness in her youth; they never suspected, and she never told them if they didn't ask. And they never did.

There exists a secret underground base in Dragon Valley Mountain. In it lives a variety of mechanoid, cybernetic, alien and human life forms. This place is situated in the vicinity of Olympus National Park in Washington State, north western USA.

Some individuals were now relaxing in the rec room. A smaller group of mechanoids had taken to one corner of the area and were busily chatting with each other. While there were many others here in the various parts of the room, they were in their own group.

"It's nae like I've tried it b'fore lass, 'tis just nae my thing." says Rusty. She had finished her oil bath and reverted to her human biomode and joined the others here.

These biomodes were a more highly advanced version of the present Pretender shells the Cybertronians currently used.

"This coming from someone whose fan belt is even more pockmarked than a randy human male!" exclaims Vanguard, who as Vanessa had also reverted to her biomode after cleaning herself up.

"Over amorous as I may be lass, least I didnae go s'far as te have childr'n as a human, like ye did." Retorts Rusty.

"And it's the best thing I ever did!" laughs Vanessa. Rusty murmurs and scoffs at her team mates comment. "Not that you'd ever want to be responsible for anyone but yourself, lil' Miss Hussy!"

Sound Track was nearby strumming away on her guitar, also in her biomode. She had noticed that her team had become slightly inebriated. It was usually Rusty and Casey who argued the most as they were the best of friends, but Casey had instead gone upstairs to do some computer work Ella had asked her to finish off. Instead Rusty had gotten drunk along with Vanessa and they had started arguing about biological urges and processes.

Mirage had declined Felicia's offer to join them in the rec room, and instead wandered around seeing everything he could, so he could report back to Jazz at Autobot base, as he had been allowed to by the femmes. After talking to Ella they had been allowed to let him wander freely as she saw no harm in the Autobots knowing about them now.

Sound Track had spied him wandering around with his cloak on. She knew who he was. Even though she was fully blind, she could see through cloaking shields like her twin sister Felicia could, where Flick saw with light, she saw with sounds. She thought nothing of his wanderings, as he was a known Autobot and no immediate threat to them as far as she knew, so she let him go.

But now he was here in the rec room looking around, still with his cloak on. And after touring what he could in the base, he ended up joining them. He was currently not enjoying the topic of conversation, and was glad he'd missed the most of it much to his chagrin.

On Charr, Galvatron was pondering his soldiers' success on Earth. Doubtful though he was of their success, he was desperately in need of an energy source for energon for his plans of universal domination and of course for the survival of his Decepticons. As he sat back on the throne in his throne room, he noticed Cyclonus and Scourge coming in quietly.

He chose to ignore them, and thought back to the days before the beginning of the war when he was just a mining mech on the mining outpost C-12, to when he was still Megatron. He remembered how it all went from bad to worse when he had let out his dark side. That simple beginning was what had started it all. The Senate trying to control and subdue information, and all the secrets that they had kept at the time; it had led him to actions that had created the Decepticons as a result. In his opinion, it was their right to freedom and power, what they deserved to have. Then it had somehow changed along the way, and the Autobots had taken the stand against him, the weak willed pawns of the Senate, as he thought of them. But he knew they had become something else, these warriors of Primus.

'_Sentinel Prime was so easy to deal with.'_ he thought to himself, _'all his prattling on about Primus only knew what._' He sighed. Not even Optimus Prime was a challenge to him anymore. As Galvatron, he was by far the strongest, but he missed all of those epic battles that he had fought against Prime in the past. He hated what Prime represented, but at the same time respected him secretly for being able to fight him on par with his own power, way back when. But now he was becoming somewhat bored. He was the most powerful Transformer in the universe, as far as he was concerned, thanks to Unicron, but now he wanted more. He wanted what he deserved, universal domination, with him as the figurehead. But time and again the Autobots seemed to thwart his plans, and now they were so desperately low on energon he and his Decepticon soldiers.

'_If that is all you require, then you need only ask. Ask and you shall receive!'_ said a definitely feminine voice in his head. He sat up in his throne, startled at the interruption to his silent repose.

It had also startled Scourge and Cyclonus, who thought that with the return of the other Decepticons and the failure of their mission on Earth, they were about to receive their punishment.

"Come outside if you dare!" Said the female voice amusingly and out loud for all to hear. The other Decepticons were grateful for the chance of a diversion from them failing their current mission, grateful that Galvatron's wrath had been distracted and his attention had been momentarily taken off of them, they watched keenly.

Galvatron set his sights on a small, human looking female. "No one dares Galvatron, fleshling, no one!" He targeted her with his fusion cannon, ready to fire. But just as he was charging it up he noticed something. She wasn't a fleshling at all.

"Fleshling?!" She replied quizzically, and then smirked at him, removing her hood. She was still in her energy form, having not yet recovered Deathstrike or another suitable body to inhabit. But this did not diminish her power in the slightest.

In the second it took him to slightly lower his arm mounted cannon, her strike was with a savage fury and speed unknown to Galvatron, and she hit him with black lightning from her fingertips. As the pain ravaged through his body, he came to remember a certain thrill at the amount of pain he was experiencing, and was somewhat comforted by the dark surges in his system. She smiled at him as if she had read his thoughts, and stopped with the black lightning.

She walked away, turning her back to him. "That was for insulting my person, for calling me a 'fleshling', an organoid, of all the nerve! We mechanoid life forms are by far the most superior and fit to survive and inherit this universe as our own." She continued to look away. "Perhaps we can come to some agreement, Galvatron. If you help me, then the power of the entire universe will be at the tips of our digits, to use as we see fit." She saw to it to appeal to his nature of being above all others and wanting to control them.

He was already smiling at the like mindedness that he and this being shared. He got up, becoming more interested in what she had to say. He put aside the urge to eviscerate her for humiliating him in front of his soldiers. They were all watching him now. Little did he know that at the present moment she was pure dark energy, and any attempt to do anything to her personally would only backfire.

He continued to ignore them, and asked her directly, "Tell me more of your dark power, when you touched me I felt the darkness within me surge out of control." He was careful to appeal to her, of what he had seen of her nature so far, in order to get more information.

"We will see," she said. "But first, as a gesture of good will between us I offer you this..." She turned and, as she motioned her hand, energon cubes appeared. More than any they'd seen for a long time. And it wasn't the usual energon, it was a different colour, but they didn't care, this was energon and it was free. The Decepticons who had been idly watching Galvatron and the female being converse, grabbed what they could amidst a scuffle of fighting, and started drinking happily. They noticed straight away it tasted different than usual but it was far stronger than anything they had even had in the past. It unknowingly made them stronger than usual and gave them twice the firepower, as they soon found out.

"You will all need your strength for the road that lies ahead," she said, looking at Galvatron. "Especially you."

He looked at her with a measure of mistrust, but he was quite willing to use her to achieve his own goals of universal domination if she was so willing to freely provide him and his soldiers with all of this energon. That and he was curious about her dark power and why it had inflamed him so.

She turned away and put her hood on again, thinking to herself, _'He's just the same as he ever was.'_ and sighed, as she remembered times of long ago when she was with her beloved Deukalion. She knew Galvatron was not him, but he now had his power flowing through his circuits, and she reminded herself to keep her head together around this one; he would need to be watched at all times. And she would also need to watch herself; she knew she craved a physical form for this dark power to interact with, but she needed to find a body first to do anything of the sort, she would have to wait till she was able to get hold of Deathstrike.

Which was why she quietly left Galvatron when he and his Decepticons were not looking, and she went in search of where Deathstrike was now being imprisoned as she saw it, by the Alliance Military. When the time was right, she would reap her revenge upon them. In the meantime, she also reached her mind out to her still loyal subjects to let them know of her return.

Meanwhile, back at Dragon Mountain, The femmes were still roughly conversing about all manner of things. Until Ella, the base caretaker joined them. She had pointed out Mirage, and while some were not bothered by him being there cloaked, Ella asked him to sit with the others with his cloaking device off and join in the conversation.

He asked all manner of questions of all of them regarding the base and what they do and how long they've been there for. He wasn't happy about the time frame they gave, now knowing that they had been on Earth, though not all of them, but at least the base, long before he and his brethren ever set foot on Earth.

"But why didn't you come and help us in our fight? We've lost so many good people in our war, extra help could've saved them?" he was rather distressed at their lack of camaraderie for fellow Transformers until Ella explained why.

"It is not our war Mirage and we are not Cybertronians. Vanguard for the most part is, or at least was till the Deltronians rebuilt her, but still we have our own matters to attend to while here on Earth."

He did not like the answer but he tried to get other information, "And what about these biomodes?, I don't know much about the Pretender shells that Jazz and Bumblebee and some others have but I know that they can only currently mimic biological life forms in appearance only?"

"While ours can mimic any biological or mechanical life form on any level, depending on how much you want it to once it is set to a form reflecting the individual." Answers Vanguard.

"How so?"

"We'll explain it to ya another time Mirage." She answers back.

Just then the base shakes and an explosion is heard up above. None of the others bat an optic over it, but Mirage asks, "What was that?"

Sunstar had since rejoined them after having finished her medical reports. She had been in her biomode as Stella, reading a local newspaper. Without moving it from in front of her she states plainly, "It is just our resident mad scientist, most likely the good Doctor has blown himself or his lab apart again."

Before Mirage is about to ask about it, a couple of race cars come screaming through the rec room. And at the same time, a large and tall black female mechanoid unit walks in, this mechanoid sees the two others racing around. One is already out of site outside the rec room, and the other is within the room and within her firing distance. She promptly fires on the green Charger and does not worry about the silver one.

"Humph." Is all she says.

Mirage looks on in horror as he notices both cars were Decepticons. "You have their kind here?"

"All kinds are welcome here Mirage, not just Autobots and Decepticons. I try not to discriminate. Besides Crash is a former Decepticon, as are a few others around here." She quickly looks to Casey who avoids her eyesight. Ella watches out of the corner of her optics as the green Charger that had been bombed, starts pulling itself together. The green charger starts to reverse from the wall it had careened into after it had been shot and transformed. It was still burning and charred in some parts.

"Yo dudette, could ya like have not shot me in the rear fender! It's like I get trippin' for days in my engine revvin' ya know." Says the green mechanoid to the black unmarked female. She just stares back at him unremorsefully.

Ella smirks and says to Mirage, "This is Crashcourse. He has the ability to reform himself after being blown apart by just about anything." Just as she says it, his mechanoid body finishes healing itself and he is whole once again. "He may be Decepticon but he's also one of the best chemists we have here." She looks between Mirage and Crashcourse for a moment then says to Crashcourse, "you'd better get down to the lab and see if the good Doctor needs help okay Crash'."

"I'm like so there! Splash ya later dudettes!" he waves to the others and runs out of the room.

Sound Track, better known in her biomode as Sonny speaks. "Well Mirage, ah think we'd best get going so ya'll can get home and make a report ta Jazz and tha others 'bout what ya'll've seen here t'day, eh?"

Mirage nodded and followed the others out.

After they had gone, it was Freefall and Ella who had remained behind.

Is he ready yet?" Ella asked of her old friend.

"Yes friend Ella. the other answers in her customary Russian language.

"Good." was Ella's response. "Then I will talk to him and see how much of me he actually remembers. He didn't succumb to the memory wipe like the others did back on Cybertron all those years ago; she knew it was because of his spark.

They both made their way to the medical bay where the prisoner was being kept. They both noticed straight away that he was online and glaring down at both of them.

"I demand that you release me at once." came the prisoners' usual egotistical verbalisation.

Ella stared him down straight away letting him know that she was not intimidated.

He had cottoned onto the description of her appearance given to him by another mechanoid before his trial. "You must be Ella?"

"Yes, that is correct." She watches his faceplate for a moment. "You do not remember me do you?"

"Should I?"

She changes the tone of her vocaliser to match that of an individual she used to be a long time ago on Cybertron, "How about now?"

"You!" This prompts the prisoner to start trying to break free on his own. "When I get free I am going to terminate you and savour every micron of it, you miserable traitorous witch. You left me to do on that miserable place so long ago, I…" He quickly stops when he realises he was remembering things that were not from his lifetime as a Decepticon and wandered where the thoughts had come from.

In his confusion Ella reacts, "No, I'm afraid you won't…" she pushes a button to settle him down, more straps come out of the chair and tie him down, which another lever comes from the ceiling and attaches a black restraint collar to his neck. "...Starscream."

When the collar clicks into place, he immediately goes offline and his newly upgraded Pretender shell activates and shifts him into his new human sized body. Ella is not at all shocked to see the familiar face before her of his humanoid form; it is the spitting image of her long dead fourth son, Starion.

He slowly and gingerly wakes up and is released from his confines in the chair and begins to move, glaring at Ella all the while.

She ignores him and looks up to Freefall, "Do not let him out of your site for now, those are standing orders." The large black female mechanoid reverts to her human form and nods. She then escorts Starscream out of the room to his new quarters.

Ella watches as they leave, listening to Starscream's protests for Freefall to let him go, which are ignored.

She decides to stay in the medical bay and attend to some patients there.

"I see that whiney ol' prat hasn't changed a bit." Says a voice from behind a newspaper lying down on one of the other beds nearby.

"No he hasn't Ray!" Ella wanders over to talk to her old friend, "But perhaps being here he may learn to finally behave."

"I doubt it." Was the dry response from the half human Cyborg on the bed before her.


	3. Chapter 3 New Friends & Old Alleigiances

In The Beginning

New Friends And Old Allegiances

In one of the many control rooms of Autobot City, Jazz typed up his report to Optimus Prime about the events of the last several hours. When he had agreed to take on this assignment on Earth, he hadn't thought for even a second that something like this would have happened, but he took it all in stride, after all stranger things had happened here on this small planet called Earth.

He thought about how rare femmes of his species were, as back on Cybertron they were even rarer indeed, and the fighting with the Decepticons had terminated most of the last ones that had been discovered years ago back home. He had remembered what Kup had told him about them, and he was there that fateful day on Cybertron when he saw Optimus Prime lay an old friend, Elita -1, to rest along with others, Chromia and several others more he did not know. All he knew was that now, Arcee was the only Cybertronian female that remained. He thought that there may be more of them on other planets, but not here on Earth. It was a thought that never came to mind in the years he had been stationed here on Earth. But at the moment he was filling in for Ultra Magnus who was about to go off world with some others of the team, to deal with some business on Optimus Prime's orders.

When he was done with his report, he sent it along a pulse transmission directly to Optimus, and then reviewed the day's work rosters. He noticed that the Protectobots were out on security detail, and the others were around the base. Optimus had originally assigned several good soldiers to him and he was making use of everyone where they would be most useful, while he was temporarily in charge.

He looked at the security monitors and could see where everyone was. Arcee, Springer and Ultra Magnus were in the cargo bay, readying their ship to return to Cybertron. Kup and Hot Rod were saying goodbye to them, and would shortly be leaving themselves, returning to Nebulon. While their two Targetmaster partners finished the preparations on their ship, Jazz noticed they were returning to his location.

Jetfire was working on something in his science lab, along with First Aid's help. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were in the combat simulation chamber just finishing a practice session that was set to dangerously high levels. Blaster was in his quarters obviously listening to some Earth rock music at full volume, as usual. Tracks, Cliffjumper, Hound and Bumblebee were relaxing in the rec room watching some Earth TV show. And Bluestreak was working up a storm downstairs in the lower control deck, across from where he now stood.

And Mirage, well, he had gone to investigate on his own the femmes' whereabouts, and to gather information, Jazz assumed, but he'd heard nothing from him since.

Just then, the security buzzer went off. It was the human soldiers who had been assigned to the front gate. "Go ahead, what is it?" he said.

"Commander Jazz, there are some unknown people here at the gate." Said the soldier, "They say they're here with Mirage."

Jazz, slightly amused, replied, "Just hang for a bit ok, let 'em in and we'll meet you in the main entry." He left the control room and Bluestreak, who had been listening intently, joined him, very curious to know what was going on.

At the main entrance to Autobot City, Jazz had been joined by Bluestreak, who had come along with him from the control room, and the twins, who had finished their session and had also joined them.

The visiting femmes from Dragon Mountain had come into the entry area after they had been escorted in by the soldiers. Jazz gave the soldiers their leave and they returned to the entrance with the others, leaving the visitors in the Autobots' care.

Sunstar had parked right behind Vanguard. Rusty and Casey had been in their biomodes with Vanguard, while Felicia was with Sunstar. As soon as the three had gotten out the two, Sunstar and Vanguard were able to transform to their robot modes. Rusty and Felicia followed shortly after changing into Burnout and Flashdance. While Casey decided to change to her Joyride persona.

"I see you ladies are familiar with Pretender technology?" asks Bluestreak politely.

Burnout looks at Joyride and they both snicker.

Vanguard was smiling, "Not exactly. What you're seeing is Deltronian technology not Cybertronian technology. We'll explain it later."

Flash' caught Mirage's optics and winked at him, making him laugh slightly as he had discovered some information in regards to what Vanguard was referring to. He had caught part of the femme's discussion in their rec room.

Vanguard thought it proper to greet her old friends properly and so walked right up to Jazz and shook his hand to greet him.

"Uhh Vanguard, you can stop shakin' my hand now!" asked Jazz, exasperated.

She noticed what she was doing, stopped, and replied, "Hey, sorry about that! Sometimes I forget my own strength!" They both laughed, Jazz clutching his sore hand, trying to get it to move, and she continued. "So how ya been? Really, it's been ages, we gotta catch up!"

"Yeah, we do," Jazz replied, and then asked, "So, you and your friends left Mirage in one piece I see?"

"Oh ah found him rahght after we came home ta our base!" replied Flashdance.

Jazz laughed at her comment, "Looks like you've got ta get a better camouflage Mirage!" Jazz looks over to Flashdance and asks, "So how'd ya do that, I mean see through Mirage's camouflage?"

"It's light based, anythin' ta do with light I can see through it!" she answered amused.

Mirage joins in on the amusement, "It's not my fault if she can see right through me!" motioning to Flashdance, who laughs with them both.

Sunstar looked at them both, waiting for their chatter to die down. "In regards to our 'Pretender shells', they are in fact biomodes, a highly advanced version of your own technological ability. Also, they are quite capable of mimicking any biological system when programmed to do so. They are quite sophisticated and much more efficient, and serve their purpose for our endeavours."

Jazz thanked Sunstar for her information.

"You again?!" Cliffjumper exclaimed, as he saw Vanguard and the others.

"Yeah, me again, ya pint-sized rustbucket," Vanguard said grinning broadly. "Wanna make something of it?"

But before he could respond, she grabbed him and vaulted him into the air as she continued to talk. "And now that we're here, we can catch..." She paused to catch Cliffjumper over her shoulder, facing forward. "...up!"

She held Cliffjumper over her shoulder, and he started to object to his current position. "Put me down already, you punk!"

While some of the others had been having a good laugh at the show she had put on, Jazz finally intervened and asked Vanguard to set Cliffjumper down. "You haven't changed a bit, have you, Vanguard? Still as fun loving as ever!" Jazz asked her.

"Nope, haven't changed a single bit!" she replied.

Then, lifting him up again, she said to Cliffjumper, "I missed you too, old buddy," and then put him down, as he laughed about the frivolous fun for a bit.

Once on the ground, the minibot looked up at her. "Except for the new chassis, you haven't changed at all," he said, laughingly.

She leaned forward so she was at eye level with him, and said, "And you're a hot headed little crankcase, still!" She joked, and patted him on the head, as she walked away to join her friends again, leaving Cliffjumper bemused and shaking his head.

"So who are our visitors?" asked Bluestreak.

Flashdance introduced everyone. "That ya'll is Vanguard, but ya'll know her already." she said, pointing to a blue and white femme.

"This big, black and red, overgrown mech here is Burnout," Flashdance continued.

Burnout just stood there with her arms crossed and a smirk on her face, and flickered her optic at Sideswipe, who smiled back.

"That self composed lady back there is our medic and our temporary commander." Flashdance motioned to Sunstar, who gracefully bowed her head.

"I am pleased to make your acquaintances." Sunstar said politely.

"Quite the lady isn't she?" asks Jazz.

"That she is! And ah'm Flashdance. That little pink thing over there is Joyride." She said pointing to the small pink and purple femme.

She got slightly annoyed at Flashdance. "I be no pink thing, I be a De..." She stopped when she realized that she was in a room full of Autobots, but then continued calmly. "Fine, a pink thing I be then, but only for now." she said crossing her arms, pouting. Some of them looked at her strangely due to her comment but it was soon forgotten.

Sunstar looked at her and knew she didn't want any of them to know what Joyride was, as she had also covered up her old insignia just in case they suspected.

Burnout, meanwhile, had walked over to Sideswipe, and commented, "No there's a good view!"

"Hi." said Sideswipe confidently. Burnout was leaning against the wall with one hand leaning over Sideswipe grinning like a sly fox.

"So, Red, where can a couple o' mechs like ourselves go fer some privacy 'round here?" She replied.

Sideswipe grinned coyly. "Well, I suppose we could..."

Sunstreaker looked like he was about to tell her off, but was beaten to it by Vanguard. "Give it a rest, Burnout, just for one day for cryin' out loud."

Burnout turned to Vanguard and said, "A' least I go chasin' and snoggin' me own kind lass, which is more than I can say fer you."

The Autobots all looked at Vanguard in earnest. "Uhhh... a story for another time guys, I promise," she said

Burnout replies, Yeah righ', sure."

Sunstar comments, "Vanguard is right Burnout. Whatever personal business you wish to engage in with Sideswipe will have to wait. This visit is for business not leisure."

Burnout looked at Vanguard angrily for ruining her fun then turns on Sunstar, "A' least I'm nae frigid like you lass." She then saw that Jazz had started to move everyone out of the entrance area, and followed them out of the room.

Everyone, except the twins, followed Jazz, and Burnout, who winked at Sideswipe as she passed him.

Sunstreaker slapped his twin brother on the shoulder to snap him out of his dopey grin as he watched Burnout leave.

"What?" Sideswipe said to his brother.

Sunstreaker looked at him. "Watch yourself, dirtbot, you never know what you might catch from associating with these newcomers." he said haughtily.

Sideswipe replied, "This coming from you? I didn't know you cared so much about me bro'! Besides I saw you eyeing off that pretty golden femme, Sunny, so get over it!" He finished off laughingly, as he walked off in the direction of the rec room where the others had gone. Sunstreaker followed right behind him, walking alone.

Starscream had been taken to a room and left free to roam around in his own quarters under guard by Freefall. He had tried in vain to talk to her but she just ignored him.

And instead he sat back in a chair that was in this apartment and thought back to how he had gotten into this predicament.

Starscream had indeed tried to incite an uprising on one of the outlying planets of the Delta system. He had not counted on there being so many different types of mechanoids in this planetary system. Very different from Cybertron he thought at the time, and just ripe for him to become its leader.

The residents however, even though they were mainly of the criminal element were either happy with the already present establishment or didn't want him horning on their territory as he so blindly found out. As he had rather quickly been taken up by the authorities and taken to a jail cell on Delta Four for a criminal hearing.

He was not happy with the swift judicial system of this place, but he was well aware of the level of technology they had. Far superior than anything he'd ever seen on Cybertron in it's hey day. He had been sitting in the cell quietly until he discovered more than he wanted to. In a cell next to his, a fellow Decepticon sat, also awaiting release.

That Decepticon looked up the moment he knew someone was watching, and exclaimed, "Screamer, s'at you in there? Well, aren't you a sight for sore optics? We all thought you were terminated by Galvatron." The familiar stranger exclaimed.

"Well do I look dead, Octane ol' buddy?" He replied with a smug look on his face.

"No, but it's great to see a familiar face in this infernal mech hole." Octane paused, and then asked Starscream, "So, what are ya in for?"

But before Starscream could answer, another mechanoid strolled up from outside the cell's block. Starscream's jaw dropped slightly when he saw it was a femme Decepticon. Never had he seen one. Most females he knew of were terminated when the first war broke out between the Autobots and Decepticons.

Her name was Switchblade, and she was Octane's new sparkmate. She glared at Octane very sternly, and said angrily, "You were in those lousy mech bars again, weren't you?"

Octane tried to look innocent, but she saw right through him.

As the guard opened the door for her, she quickly grabbed Octane, and whacked him over his head casing. "How many times do I have to tell you, no fraternising with other femmes, I'm not sharing you with anyone!" she said angrily, and hit him over the head again.

Starscream, who had been watching, started laughing quietly at his friend's predicament. Though he was curious as to how this place had garnered Decepticons, and female ones at that, seeing as how this system had not been involved in the Cybertronian wars.

Switchblade turned her attention to him. "You got a problem, flyboy? Should I rearrange your faceplate, too?" She threatened menacingly. Starscream was about to reply to her comment when he was interjected by Octane.

"Aww, sweetheart, it's ok, he's just an old soldier buddy of mine, really!" commented Octane, trying to get Swichblade to calm down.

"Don't sweetheart me, you little mechrat, you're in enough trouble as it is." she said, and then paused for a moment as she looked Starscream up and down, smirking. She then turned to leave.

Passing Octane, she said, "I'll be waiting outside, don't take forever. We're seeing my parents in tomorrow and I don't want to see you near this place again.

Once Switchblade had gone some distance, Starscream commented to Octane, "I never would have believed it for a second if I had not've seen it with my own optics; female Decepticons, REAL female Decepticons!" he was very amused by the notion.

Octane replied, "Yeah, well, she is a handful. She beats me up all the time, but she won't let anyone get close enough to me in a fight at least, so I guess I have my very own bodyguard, too!" They both laughed at what Octane had just said, and he then continued. "Maybe you might find yourself a 'nice' lady friend around here too, but say, you didn't mention what you were in for?"

Starscream looked at him and just said, "Somebody just found me and threw me in here," he said lying, shrugging, and then sat back in his cell, "You know how it is with me."

Octane laughed again, "Yeah," and then replied, "Well, if you ever need anything, make sure you mention in your legal case that you want to be given an 'Avatar's Grace'." Starscream looked at him confused, and so he continued. "An Avatar is a high ranking official around here, you get in with one of them, you're set for life, no questions asked. And look what I got buddy, no more worryin' 'bout Galvatron tryin' to terminate me at every corner. I'm a protected mech for life now," he said stretching out his arms, unknowingly hitting a cell guard as they walked in.

Octane turned to see a femme guard by the name of Freefall standing there. She glared at him, and he yelled back at Starscream on his way out. "Just listen to my advice, old buddy, and you'll be out in no time."

Freefall said, "Humph," in response to Octane's comment as she watched him disappear from view, and then she turned her attention to Starscream. "You, come with me, and no trouble either."

Starscream had not understood what she said and tilted his head at her. She then realised her translator wasn't on and tried the same phrase again.

"Of course!" he said with a sly grin on his faceplate. "Why would I want to do that?"

As Freefall put restraint cuffs and a collar on him for transport, Starscream thought about what Octane had said, and planned his freedom right there and then, his trademark smirk on his faceplate.

The sound of Freefall placing some energon beverages on a bench close by him woke him from his drifting thoughts.

He grimaced at her being so close, he never was one to tolerate femmes very much. And this one had already beaten the slag out of him for trying to cause trouble back on Delta Four at the prison cell and also here, wherever here was. He had been offline the whole time he had been in transit and so had no idea where he was or what they would do with him. He'd decided to play along till he had his chance to get away, or at least get around this place and see if anything here would be of use to him.

Freefall returned to her place at the entrance and he noticed the small humanoid named Ella walk in. The feelings he had before towards her in the medical bay seemed somewhat diminished now, controlled. He touched the collar and realised it was the source of the suppression. He got up as she approached him.

He could not find himself to do anything physical to her. She walked right up to him and touched his arm and he wanted to knock away her hand but couldn't. It hurt as he tried to resist to the control of the collar.

"There is no need to fight it." She said.

She took a chair from a cupboard and sat in it. He just stood there and stared at her.

He had to admit to himself that her smiling at him made him nervous. He didn't like the fact he had no way out of his predicament right now or any control over his transforms. And he didn't like what the presence of this humanoid was doing to him; he couldn't act like his normal Decepticon self

"It is good to see you again, Star'." She commented in a mellow tone.

He had a sudden moment of anger and wanted to lash out, but instead turned away from her and crossed his arms, pouting. "You left me to die."

"What else was I supposed to do? Did you want Megatron to find out we had a deal going? I had to play the game and keep him from finding out what we were doing alright." She was using her old voice that Starscream had come to know while she was masquerading as a transformer on Cybertron before the war had broken out.

"It still doesn't change anything." He shot back.

Leaving him alone, Ella started to walk out of the room, "If that's what you want then fine." She turns to Freefall, "Let him roam around, he's no threat to us with that collar on. But still keep your optics on him." The large black female mechanoid nods.

Ella presses a switch on her wrist and Starscream feels control of his body switching back to him, and he promptly changes back to his full sized mechanoid self, and walks out the entrance to the apartment, past Freefall and Ella.

Ella smirks to herself and sighs. "Looks like he's off to try and leave, he's in for a surprise though!" and she walks back in the direction of her house up above the hidden base. Freefall meanwhile switches back to her mech mode and follows Starscream in the direction he stormed off in.

Back at Autobot City, in the hallways that lead to the rec room, Vanguard was talking to Jazz. "I'm kinda sad that I didn't get to say goodbye to Prowl and the others, they were all good warriors. I was occupied at the time under orders on a mission with this team I'm on now."

"Yeah?" replied Jazz. "So what did happen to you anyway? You mentioned something before about a crash on a planet somewhere?"

"Yep. On Delta 3 to be exact. After Shockwave shot my ship down, I thought that was it. But I woke up there in a new body and no memory. The doctors said I was barely in one piece when they found me. And they weren't familiar with Cybertronian body forms at all. So they went and put me in a new one. They did what they thought was the best thing, realigned my spark, as they said and well here I am. My memory eventually came back. I didn't come back to Cybertron, 'cause I'd heard you'd all gone missing, and I was also afraid Prime or some of the others mighta thought I'd gone AWOL. I had some problems in the mean time that I'll tell you guys about later, and I'd since joined this lot here. I just didn't know how you were going to take to this new face of mine; I don't even know what Trailbreaker is going to say." She paused before continuing.

"You'll find out soon enough when Prime tells him you're here. It was mentioned in my report to him that I just finished sending right before you all arrived." Jazz replied, "Well, it's no big deal, it's great to see ya back, anyhow."

The others in the rec room all looked up as Jazz brought in the guests and introduced them all.

Tracks, meanwhile, was asking Joyride about her being almost all pink. "And what are you supposed to be? A fairy or something!"

She jests and points, "Oh look a mirror!"

Flashdance, however, had not heard some of the others talking to her, on account of her external audio system being switched off. She had been listening to her music tracks, and Vanguard, having noticed this, disconnected her audio feed and smacked her in the head casing.

"It's no wonder ya goin deaf, Flash, geez, is that loud or what?" Vanguard motioned to the excessively loud music that emanated from Flashdance's external speakers. The noise brought in Kup and Hot Rod, and also Blaster from his quarters.

"What's this damned racket?" asked Kup.

"Sounds groovy to me." replied Blaster.

"Yeah!" chimes in Hot Rod and Jazz.

Kup said to him, "You would." and Blaster laughed.

Kup turned to see a familiar face, "Vanguard…is that you?"

"It sure is, you old tin can, so how ya been?" She asked, as they shook hands.

"Great, but I see you have had some changes." Kup steps back to take a look at his old friend and former student.

She looked at him and said jokingly, "You haven't changed much, still the same old bucket of bolts I used to know way back when!"

This comment got a loud laugh out of Hot Rod, but he had quickly shut up when Kup gave him an icy stare.

"He one of your new students?" She asked, pointing at Hot Rod.

"Yep," Kup replied. "A real handful!"

"And a handsome one, too," she said, smiling at Hot Rod, who smiled back. "Sorry to disappoint ya, Hot Rod, but I'm already taken," she said, and winked at him. This got a stifled guffaw out of Burnout. Vanguard looked at her annoyed and Burnout shrugged her shoulder plates. She turns back to Hot Rod. "But there's plenty more where we come from!"

This made Hot Rod laugh. "Yeah, I'll just bet there is!"

"So what do ye lads do fer fun 'round here? What 'bout a frien'ly little sparring match 'tween us all, eh?" asked Burnout. She looks over to Sunstar who doesn't give her a disagreeing look at all. "I guess by tha' tis' nae a no?"

Sunstar nods her head slightly.

"So, who's in?" continued Vanguard, "Definitely Burnout and myself, how about you ladies?" She asked Flashdance and Sunstar. She didn't even bother asking Joyride as she knew she wasn't very interested in fights.

Sunstar commented, "I will take part but as the last participant."

"Well, ok. Hey Jazz, what about it, huh? A friendly little match?" asked Vanguard.

"Sure, why not?" was his reply.

"I'm in," said Hot Rod. "I need a little excitement around here, anyway!"

"I'm in, too." said Sideswipe, and turned to Sunstreaker. "C'mon bro, have some fun with us."

Sunstreaker turned to Sideswipe, and replied, "Yeah, whatever. Though I could think of plenty of other things more interesting to do than this."

"I guess that means he's in," said Jazz. He took them all down to their combat training area and offered them all staff weapons to perform their practice fight with.

"Don' be a daft fool Jazz, we dinnae figh' wi' toys!" said Burnout.

Sunstar adds, "She is correct. Most of the team has been trained in hand to hand combat. We are capable without using weapons."

"Ok then." Jazz puts the staffs back and starts looking over their guests and the practice participants. "Guess Hot Rod can go, followed by the twins. You mechs ok with that?" he gets nods from his comrades, "What about you ladies?"

They look to Sunstar who found a seat next to Joyride, to sit with the other Autobots who had come to watch but were not participating in the practise.

Sunstar had turned back to them. "I had asked to be placed last. I suppose that Vanguard or Burnout can go first, and then myself."

The rest of them not taking part in the first practise sat down away from Hot Rod and Vanguard and gave them some room to fight.

Hot Rod and Vanguard started circling each other then charged and locked their digits together.

"Ya won't last too long like this kid," retorts Vanguard, "I'm too strong for ya and…" she forces him out of their hand lock. She raises her hands while he is away from her and knocks him against the wall using her rare psionics ability, "I don't think you Cybertronians have learnt power streaming yet."

There are plenty of murmured gasps from the other Autobots. They hadn't heard of power streaming before, but they had heard of certain individuals with special abilities above the norm.

Meanwhile Hot Rod had gotten himself up. He was stiff but able to fight still and came at Vanguard for another try. But all she did was sit down, cross her legs and put up her shield.

He was still pounding away at it, starting to get tired when she asked, "Had enough yet?"

Up in the seated area Sunstar addresses Jazz, "It would be prudent to award the fight to Vanguard. Your comrade is tiring and his welfare is paramount at this time."

"Yeah sure, why not? He gave it a go though!" Says Jazz. He gets up and yells down to Hot Rod, "That's it 'Roddy, let her have the win, your too tired to finish it."

Hot Rod is panting, short on energon, "You're lucky I'm tired! I would've giving you a run for your energon."

"Yeah sure whatever ya say kiddo. You've got a cast iron manifold I'll give ya that." She slaps him on the back which sends him onto his knees. Somewhat amused she helps him get up and apologises and then helps Hot Rod over to where the others are sitting and sits him down to let him rest. Vanguard looks over at the twins and asks, "Ok who's next."

Its Sideswipe's turn next. And to the surprise of everyone he finds a way to get past Vanguard's shield and win his practice fight.

When Vanguard sits down to rest, "Well one thing I'll never do is underestimate those two, they're full of surprises!"

Sunstreaker was stifling a laugh behind them.

Sideswipe also made short work of Burnout. She was annoyed about it too, "Tis nae fair, he cheated!"

"So did ya'll." Retorts Flashdance. Joyride was laughing her head off.

"But he cheated first lass?" she shot back at her team mate.

Everyone looked to Jazz and Sunstar, she spoke up. "I would give the win to Sideswipe. I did not see this cheating to which you are referring to Burnout. Please accept the loss and be done with it."

Burnout sat down gruffly, swearing under her breath, feeling humiliated at being beaten by a mech with less strength than she had.

"You be takin' it easy Burnout, it only bein'a practice fight, not bein' one of ya pit fights!?" comments Casey.

She calmed down and accepted the loss, "I s'pose ye righ' lass. I'll get 'im in a proper figh' later!"

The two start laughing and watch as Sunstar takes up her fight with Sideswipe.

The two mechs are just standing there facing each other. Sideswipe takes charge of the fight and makes a run for Sunstar. She takes every blow he gives and either dodges, blocks or counters. It gets to point of after 10 minutes, Sideswipe still hasn't landed a single blow on her and she still has her composure and has barely moved from her starting point.

Sunstar addresses Sideswipe, "You are getting tired. Perhaps it is time to end the fight and let your twin have his turn?"

Sideswipe replies "Not likely!" He charges at her but is quickly taken down when Sunstar sidesteps him and grabs part of his neck area. This manoeuvre takes him down very quickly and he becomes unconscious almost immediately, slipping down onto the floor. Sunstar picks him up after removing her hold on him and puts him with the others.

Sunstreaker joins her after checking on his brother, "I'm not as easy to take down as my brother. Just for fun, I'll go easy on you because you're a femme!"

Vanguard and the others murmur to themselves.

They watch as each mech matches blow for blow. Sunstar and Sunstreaker are evenly matched to a point. Then she manages to grab his arm and injure it, not once but twice.

Sunstar had Sunstreaker pinned to the ground with his face to the floor and his injured arm in her grip. And her left ped on his back. "Do you still wish to go easy on me Sunstreaker just because I am a femme?"

He doesn't answer and tries to turn it to his advantage, swinging around to take his arm out of her grasp; she moves quickly to avoid his impending attack, jumping up over his low kick, into the air and landing gracefully on her peds. He tries another technique and she avoids it again, only to have her pin him with his back to the ground and eject blades from her forearms and point them at his face. He is flat on the ground and starts laughing, "Hmm!" he smirks, "You can have the win for now, but I want a rematch, no holds barred next time, eh?"

She steps away, puts her blades away and offers a hand to him to help him up. He waives it off and gets up on his own.

Sideswipe is laughing, "Never thought I'd see the day when my bro' does something noble and let the lady win!"


	4. Chapter 4 Alien Visitation

In The Beginning

Alien Visitation

Staring out the window of her large manor house into the pouring rain, Ella Drake thought to herself that it had been almost a month since her team had been to visit the Autobots in their base further south. Many things had happened.

But before that, in regards to Starscream, When Freefall had contacted her directly from the court hearing, and had informed her that he had not only asked for an 'Avatar's Grace', but the judge had assigned her to be his caretaker, she was partially annoyed and also relieved. It did work to her favour, but she was not sure she was ready to have him free on her base just yet. For the last month he had behaved himself which was what had worried her. He had also adjusted well to his new body shell and programming. But he still kept to himself most of the time. There were at times some Decepticons who came through the base and he talked to him but not many others. In the mean time she had assigned him to Freefall's team who happened to be stationed on the base for now.

Ella was what the Alliance council called an Avatar - a Bioroid with great power and with a long lifespan – and though she couldn't always use her power, she did what she could to help others, especially mechanoids. She had been around for more than 30 million years, and was also a high ranking official within the Alliance, until she had left, so now they sent her all the weird ones that they didn't want to deal with, who asked for grace. She had a track record for reforming known criminals, especially Decepticons.

Freefall had also told her of another Decepticon who'd run into Starscream in lockup, someone by the name of Octane, whom she had told Freefall was one of her other charges. He had told Starscream about the 'Avatar's Grace'. Freefall and her team were taking turns guarding him today.

Not that she was complaining about having him around. Under her transformer guise on Cybertron, she had been friends with both Starscream and some others before, and during, the war there but had since lost contact with them and still felt some guilt over something she had done to him there. They had spent some time alone together in the last month discussing those events but Starscream was too proud and stubborn to want to forgive her or even listen to what had happened, so she let it be. He had however garnered the group of former Decepticons here on the base, and lucky for her none of them wanted to follow him in any mutiny.

She had sent her main team, the 'Roughnecks', off on a mission to the fringes of the Dominion.

Even though the Alliance had purged this menace from their star systems a long time ago, they still existed in their own right elsewhere in the cosmos; but they were troublesome, and quite often the Alliance of planets would need to send out soldiers to settle skirmishes that had erupted over contention of borders between the Alliance and the Dominion.

The Dominion knew they had no real power any more and so fought for the sake of it, trying to get whatever they could. They were indeed a far cry from what they used to be a long time ago, and Ella was grateful they no longer had contact with Decellion, or access to certain technology anymore, which most often kept them under control, but not always.

Nowadays the Alliance often contacted Ella about new recruits for special training or others for rehabilitation. She was not a public figure of the Alliance. To most she was a figure of myth and legend in Alliance history, just the way she preferred it. She didn't want the Alliance Media bothering her all day. The new recruits were how her team had formed. There had already been a Roughnecks team in her mother's time when she was in control of the base, but the current roster were gathered and trained by her personally in the last few million years.

Most of the team members hadn't been on any missions since and were now relaxing on the base, awaiting the visit from a team of Autobots from Autobot City. She looks off into the distance through the heavy rain and just barely sees them in the distance. She could just barely get her scanners to sense through all the rain, but she knew the Autobots were there, she could always tell when they were there. It was their sparks she could always sense.

Several miles away, Jazz and his other comrades in arms, Sideswipe, Kup, Hot Rod, Cliffjumper, Bumblebee and Sunstreaker, were driving in their vehicle modes through the pouring rain towards a rendezvous point given to them by Ella Drake at the Dragon Mountain Facility. They had all had a long discussion about the existence of this base before leaving Autobot City and wondered exactly how long it had been there right under their sensors before the femme's had shown up to help them about a month ago.

Jazz was thinking about the conversation he had had with Optimus about his initial report of the femmes who had helped them that day, when Kup pulled up alongside him and started talking.

"Remember, lad, we have to keep our wits about us, according to Mirage's report they have Autobots and Decepticons on this base, so we can't afford to let our guard down until we know what's what."

Kup paused, and Hot Rod, who was driving just ahead of Jazz, interrupted. "Lighten up Kup, we can still have some fun and make new friends, and if we're lucky we might get to fight a few Decepticons," and he sped off towards Sunstreaker and Sideswipe up ahead.

"Damn impulsive hot head," said Cliffjumper from behind. "He's gonna end up getting' someone else terminated one of these days, just like he did to Prime once."

Bumblebee, who was near him, said, "Well, Optimus is alive and breathing again, so I hope that doesn't happen again any time soon."

An issue from the past had been surrounding Hot Rod for quite some time. A reason why he had taken to being assigned to Nebulon, to avoid the backlash of conversation. A lot of the Autobots hadn't yet forgiven him for his part in Prime's passing the first time around and wouldn't let him forget it. But since the appearance of these femme's, Optimus had asked Kup and Hot Rod to stay on Earth and work with Jazz while Ultra Magnus was away do establish relations with these new mechanoids. However Jazz was still trying to keep everyone off of Hot Rod's back.

Jazz replied, "Well, Optimus did give us some orders to follow, and we'll stick to that, ok?" He was trying to avoid an argument breaking out about this particular entrenched issue.

Jazz and Kup continued to talk about how some of the other Autobots had been feeling since they found out about Hot Rod's involvement in Prime's death, and his subsequent resurrection, and about how quiet Galvatron and his Decepticons had been lately, as no one had heard anything from them in this sector of space, not even on Cybertron, and they both knew that it was too good to be true. They had been too quiet and for too long to be simply forgotten about.

On the ridge above the entrance to the military base, Laura was with her friends Ryan and Christine, camping in the forest of the weekend.

Laura had been told by some on the base that today the Autobots would be visiting. She however gave the idea to Ryan and Christine that they were moving in mech parts and possibly some new secret weapons from the military base today to Ella's workshop topside in the mountain area on her estate for her researchers to work on. She hoped it they would get a glimpse of the Autobots and forgive her for dragging them up here in the rain.

Ryan had found a dry spot where they could set up and view the workshop, but unknown to them it also had a view on the secret entrance to Ella's base that Laura knew about.

"Tell me again why we have been dragged all the way up here?" asked Christine. "It's pouring rain and I'm soaked through to the bone, and I want to go home."

"I've been entrenched is several data streams for days, and then the other day some of my Transformers spy flunkies found a data transmission that said some Autobots were heading up this way today. The only way they have to go is the main mountain road through the forest to Port Angeles. I figured they're heading to the Military base there. With the view from here you can get a clear view of the road as they come through." Ryan put down his binoculars for a moment, looked at the two girls, and then continued excitedly. Laura was happy that at least one of them knew about the Autobots being ehre today.

"That's if they are going to come through here today?" retorted Christine, obviously uncomfortable.

"I mean think, if they are gonna be here today, how great that would be; we get to be this close to seeing them in person!" Ryan turned back to looking at the entrance and surrounding road with his binoculars.

Christine shrugged and looked at Laura, and then she got out her binoculars and joined him.  
"I doubt we'd be able to see anything in this rain?" Laura said, "But I'm sure we could get lucky! Who knows?"

Just outside the main entrance to the base, there was a building. It was Ella's workshop. But it was not known publicly by that name. The house on the estate to which it belonged was under Ella's son's name, Adam Drake, home of the CEO of Drake Corp International. The workshop was where many top scientists made several inventions for the company. But it harboured a secret entrance.

Outside the facility in a large hanger area was the entrance. The floor of the hanger gave way to a large local teleporting field. It was also a mobile transport platform that descended down underground, several miles into the base. There were five hangers all arranged next to each other that performed the same function as the first one, being that many trucks went into and out of the hangar dropping off supplies and items.

The first hanger was where the Autobots were asked to meet their contact. As they drove up the road that led to the hangers, they found several other humans about the place, or so they thought they were. Some humans played a game of football in the pouring rain, and were getting covered completely in mud while they were at it.

Unknown to the Autobots, they were Roughnecks team members in their Biomodes; Landslide and Freestyle against others, the twins; Gateway and Getaway. Some of Flashdance's animecha, with their holo-emitters on, were also there, in the dry shelter of the enormous entrance, standing with the team leader Sound Track, also in her Biomode, 'Sonny', with her team associate on duty at the main gate today, named Marguerite Jager. Marge' as she was known was waiting for them in the operational console room in the hanger, at the controls that operated the elevator.

As they played their game, the football was accidentally thrown onto the bonnet of an incoming vehicle to the hanger and splattering it with mud, namely Sunstreaker's bonnet, right before he went under the shelter. He transformed and threw the ball back to the humans, telling them to watch what they're doing, very grumpily.

"Gee Sunny, that certainly looks like an improvement!" joked his twin brother Sideswipe.

Sunstreaker told him to shut up then turned to the black and blue haired female human standing near him. "So, you're our welcoming committee, then?" he asked.

Without even looking at Sunstreaker, she nodded, and he noticed her cane but said nothing. "Yeah," she replied, and pointed to the elevator. "On ya'll get." she said.

Jazz had looked at her, thinking her voice and appearance was somehow familiar to him but he couldn't place it, so he let it go for now.

"All aboard ya'll!" she then called to the others just outside. They had finished their game and had just come inside when Sonny called to them. They all came over to join everyone else on the elevator. Marguerite started it up, and they descended into the base, down below.

On the way down, the Autobots got to see various parts of the base through some the walls, and stared in disbelief at the sheer size and the advanced technology of the place, along with all the different types and sizes of mechs present.

"Home Sweet Home!" said Sonny, as the elevator hit bottom. "This way," she asked the visiting Autobots to follow her, while the others that were in their Biomodes moved to another room to clean up.

She turned to Sunstreaker, sensing his disgust at the mud on him, and said, "Ya'll can clean up here." motioning to a black circle pad that had just appeared on the floor out of nowhere. "Just step on the pad and press the green button."

Sunstreaker was just about to ask what button, when a pole extended from the floor to his height. It opened up at the end and there was the button to which the human had been referring to. He pushed it, unsure what was going to happen, and then was enveloped in a green light, cleaning him both inside and out.

Once done, he smiled and said, "Now I'm back to my beautiful self again." He paused; wishing to thank the human, but didn't know her name.

"Sonny Lane." she said, as if reading his thoughts, and tipped her cap.

"Not _th_e Sonny Lane? Wow, love your music, but I thought you were dead?" Jazz paused before continuing. "Killed in that nasty car accident years ago that finished your band, 'Sorority House'."

She smiled to herself without looking at Jazz. "Some of us ya'll are just not keen enough ta die! Ah'll explain mah story later." she added, as some of the Autobots, confused, wanted to ask her more questions. "But for now, we have this." After walking for a time, she gestured for them to go into a rather large control room that spanned several floors. Both Autobots and Decepticons worked at the controls.

Two individuals who had come downstairs with the group from upstairs were snickering to themselves as they processed files at a desk at the far end of the room. Sonny knew who they were and cautioned them. "Ya'll bettah not be downloadin' that stuff again, Gateway and Getaway."

Both of them having transformed from their biomodes back to their robotic modes after cleaning up, were hanging out in the control room for something to do as their caretaker was otherwise occupied elsewhere on the base.

"You ain't de boss of us; we'll do what we want." Yells Getaway as he prods his brother, "Ain't it right' bro'?"

The meeker of the twins was Gateway. He often followed his brother around as he had nothing else to do and no other family to speak of, and quite often got into trouble or was the voice of reason when his brother was going to do something bad. It didn't always work though. "I guess?" he mulled quietly.

"Ya'll get outtah here, now!" was Sonny's response to the obnoxious one of the twins, who grouched and left under protest, yelling foul abuse and language as he left.

"Damn kids!" muttered Sonny under her breath as they left. She took the visitors up to another level to introduce them to their intended company.

"Dey're here." said a pink and purple haired human female, and standing with her was the one Sonny was looking for.

The tall, silvery haired female human turned to the one next to her and said, "Ok, you just finish that report, and then join me over here with the others." The fact that Casey now sported a Decepticon symbol on her arm was what surprised the visitors.

The Decepticon replied, "Dere be no problems 'ere, boss," and then added with a wave to the others, "Hi!" to the Autobots, and returned to her work.

"So that's why she was actin' a bit funny at our base?" queries Jazz to the others.

Ella catches Jazz's chatter and responds to it by looking back at Casey busily typing. "Yes. She is one of them, one of the very few reliable ones here on this base." She sees the worry and concern on the faceplates of her Autobot visitors and reassures them, "Don't worry, if any of them cause any trouble while you're here, they will be dealt with. But enough of that, time for a formal introduction. Hello Autobots," she said as she wandered over to the group, as Sonny took her leave. "Welcome, I am Ella Drake." she walked up to a higher deck so she was at their level. "This is the main control room of this part of the underground facility. From here we can see and control anything on the base, although it is not the only place that can do that. This facility has operated in secrecy for a very long time even before the human species first appeared on this planet, and also before the Ark crashed here on Earth. It is of ancient alien design and is maintained by the ones who live here currently on this base. And that over there," she said, as she noticed several of them staring at the Decepticon in another corner of the room, "is Crusade." Crusade looked up at the mention of his name, looked at the group of Autobots. Scowled at their shocked expressions of him, and then returned to his work.

Ella continued to explain. "There are transformers from both sides of the fence currently here, mostly ones that have no other homes for the moment, such as individuals you will see around the base from time to time and may or may not recognize."

"You mean to tell me there are more of them than what you just have here? And you let them roam free? On your base?" Kup asked defensively as he motioned to the Decepticon.

His was not the only annoyed expression, as several of the Autobots had suddenly become more agitated at the notion of being in the company of Decepticons who were not soldiers in the employ of Megatron or their current leader Galvatron. They were soldiers having fought Decepticon soldiers for such a long time, that letting down their guard and placing their trust in someone they didn't know, would be hard for them to do.

"Yes there are, and I expect you all to keep your weapons holstered while you're here, unless they are needed. Just a reminder that you are in someone else's territory and they're my rules for today and any other time you visit. I don't want any trouble, whether you see any Decepticons you know or don't, no fights. I'm trying to maintain a peaceful balance…" Ella is interrupted by the walls shaking and a blast can be heard from far off elsewhere on the base, "…here." She sighs and gets onto one of the comms units and inquires about something, leaving the Autobots jumping for their weapons, thinking it may be a Decepticon attack. Ella finishes on the comms and asks them, "Its ok, just the lab. One of our researchers had an accident with an experiment." She smiles.

Just then Casey came over to Ella and whispered something in her ear in another language, "Alright, do that then." Casey went back to her console when she got a nod.

Kup had been listening, it was vague but he did recognise the language, having been in the Delta system before the war started. He also recognized the accent Ella used. He did not recognize her face right now but he knew her voice and smiled slightly. "It is you, isn't it Draxa?" she turned and looked at him and smiled.

"I thought of all of you, you would be the one to remember me old friend!" she said still smiling. "Nice to see your hearing still works after all this time!" She started to laugh, confusing the others.

Kup started laughing along with her.

The others looked to Kup, and Hot Rod said, "Not _the_ Draxa, Draxa Levion, the one you've talked about in your stories before?" Hot Rod turned to look at Ella. "But she's a human, how could it be her?"

Kup replied amusedly. "Well, appearances can be deceiving, especially where our kind is concerned lad. And with some of the things I've seen her do, anything's possible! Her kind employs similar transformable technology to ours, but on a more sophisticated level, as their race is older than ours." He looked back to Ella, "Although from what I remember, the last time I saw you, you died?" What happened?"

"Sorry, I had to make everyone think I was terminated, and let you mechs get on with the war, besides you did well without little old me, anyway. It'll be a story for another time, I promise," she said to all of them, and Kup nodded. Many of the other Autobot had become curious as to what she meant and how she and Kup knew each other, but they didn't have a chance to ask any questions as Ella diverted their attention. "Right now, we have all of this to look at." She motioned to several large screens in the centre of the control room hanging from the ceiling, and it showed every room on the base.

The Autobots were all awed by how sophisticated the technology was in this place. Off in the distance somewhere, Bumblebee could hear the music from the recreation area, and asked, "What's that noise? It sounds like the type of music Jazz and Blaster listen to." Jazz smirks as he recognizes it straight away.

"Oh, that," Ella responded. "That's just coming from the rec room. Why? You want to go see?" she asked them.

"Sure, why not?" said Jazz enthusiastically.

"Just a moment," said Ella, as she turned to someone. "Casey are you done?"

She pushed back her chair, and replied, "Yep."

"Ok, can you take these guys down to the rec room and entertain them for a bit? I'll be along shortly."

Casey looked up at all of them. She had been among them in their base without causing any trouble, but it was strange for them now because they knew what she was. "You lot be havin' a problem wit' somethin'?" she asks them. When she got no response, she shrugs her shoulders and turns to escort them out of the room, and to the recreation area.

Landslide and Freestyle had come into the bar in the rec room area, and dried off not long before the visiting Autobots joined them, having taken showers in their Biomodes, rather than the quick clean like Gateway and Getaway had.

In the rec room, the Autobots were shown around until they eventually settled into some seats on one side of the room.

Upon entering, they all noticed the enormity of the place and the mixture of both humans and mechanoids, and of them, not only transformers but other types of mechanoids. Casey pointed out the areas that most groups generally stuck to, she motioned to an area that some resident Decepticons hung around in. She cautioned them to stay clear of there for now, as there seemed to be some wild ruckus going on right now. Kup and Jazz had to physically hold their twins back from going in that room next door and causing trouble. There were two levels with several annexes for all types of recreational activities. Up above was another level for human sized individuals, while most of the room was for transformer sized individuals.

In the centre of the room was a stage, and on it were three female humans that Jazz recognized, were playing rock music at full volume oblivious to their surroundings. The stage itself was sized for transformers, but was currently being used by humans.

Around the base of the elevated stage was a bar, and at that bar, one of the Roughnecks, Burnout, was sitting and relaxing, having a drink of fuel.

Sideswipe, having found Burnout near the main bar, went and over and started a conversation. The rest of his comrades found seats nearby.

Jazz took a seat near the stage to listen to the music. Kup looked around the room, before joining Sideswipe and the others near the bar.

The group on the stage finished with the song they were performing and got a riotous applause from several others in the room including Jazz. "Sorority House is still as good as ever!" he commented, "Why'd you gals stop performin' in public?"

The one who had been on the drums looked up at Jazz and smiled, "Because we're not human that's why! It was just an undercover job to hide who we really are."

"Vanguard?" queried Sunstreaker recognizing her voice.

"You got it, Goldy!" She winked at him, and he continued.

"So, just how many of you have 'pretender' shells?" he asks.

"The whole team I'm on and then some," she replied, smiling, "We're the main team, all femmes though, but we get a lot of the high end undercover work. The rest of them get tech as they need it, but Ella lets them have anything they need really, just like us." She looks to Burnout and yells, "How's about some drinks over here, eh?"

Burnout looked over at her diminutive team mate, and then said in slurred speech, "Get 'em y'self lass." She turns away from the stage and continues to talk to Sideswipe.

Over on the stage, Jazz noticed Sonny Lane. He'd never seen her like she was now. She had several cables extruding from her back. He watched her as she took them all out on by one and put them away. Without looking up at Jazz, she says to him, "To some it's impolite ta stare ya know?"

"Uh sorry!" he apologizes, "I just didn't realise you were a mech."

"Ah'm blind too ya'll but not that it matters, ah can still see with sound."

Felicia pipes up when she notices his confusion over what Desonia had said, "Whaht she means ya'll is she has no optic sensors." Some of the others are confused also, they'd never heard of such a thing. Felicia continues, "She learnt ta see without 'em."

"Why not just get new ones?" asks Bumblebee.

"Yeah." adds Cliffjumper.

Sonny smiles and comments, "Lahke mah twin said, I learnt ta see without 'em."

"You wouldn't be much good as a fighter then would you?" retorts Cliffjumper. Several of the Roughnecks team members in the vicinity started laughing.

"On the contrary," said Vanessa, still somewhat amused over Cliffjumper's comment, "She's our team leader, and can kick even mine and Burnout's tailgates if she wanted to, even though we're both much stronger than she is!"

"I'll believe that when I see it." Says Cliffjumper.

Sonny is amused, "Perhaps ya'll can be our volunteer later."

Just as Ella entered the room, a Decepticon was thrown out of the other section, and a big tank-like female said angrily, "And don't bother coming back!" Then she dusted her hands, and returning to her friends back inside. Many of the Autobot went for their guns upon sighting the transformer.

"In trouble again, eh Octane?" said Ella, somewhat amused. She had walked into the rec room followed by another familiar faced individual to the Autobots.

Jazz and the others all turned and got up at the site of both of them. And upon seeing his old enemies, Octane got up in a flash, and said, "Oh, slag!"

He reached for his gun, but Ella told him to put it away and asked the Autobot to do the same. She was annoyed they had forgotten her simple little rule for their visit, but what could she do, these guys were soldiers, hardened by millions of years of war.

They didn't all holster their weapons straight away, especially since they noticed who the other mech behind Ella was. Their old 'friend' Starscream.

Ella looked to Octane and said, "You should go find something to do, I think?" She motioned to some of the Autobots' guns still upholstered around the room.

"Yeah, I'm gonna go out," he said quietly. "See ya round, 'Screamer." He said nothing to Octane as he left the rec room with another in tow, namely a female called Switchblade. She sneered at Starscream as she went past him.

Ella commented to her, "Switchblade, try to keep him outta trouble?" The femme nodded, and continued to follow Octane.

Kup, who had been watching them, looked at Starscream then at Ella. "You let him wander around freely too I suppose?" he said to her, surprised.

She looked back at him. "Well, not exactly." She motioned to the black collar around his neck. "That collar keeps him confined to this base. There have been no problems so far. And except for his over inflated ego, he's almost normal!" Starscream was not the slightest bit amused by being the brunt of a joke and sneers down at Ella, the collar also preventing him from raising a hand to her or others in any violent way.

He knows it's no use wasting his energon on doing anything to her, he knows what she is capable of. He just sighs, and then finds a place to sit down on his own, reading script from a holo field projected on the table in front of him.

Kup said to her sternly, "Watch yourself Ella, speaking from personal experience, Starscream is one Decepticon that can't be trusted, not on any level." The other Autobots agreed.

"Yeah, wherever you found him, even if he was a goner you should have left him there, he's not worth the trouble." Adds Cliffjumper gruffly.

"I am not the type to believe anyone is beyond redemption." She replies.

"Looks like we have another idealist like Optimus." States Sunstreaker coldly rolling his optics.

"She's got a valid point, but then again so does Kup and Cliffjumper." Says Bumblebee. "It's something Prime would do given half a chance." He looks at Ella, "I don't know you Ella but if you think he's worth it then give him a go, but I'd listen to what my friends have to say too."

"Wise words comin' from a small bot, li'l' buddy!" comments Jazz placing his hand on Bumblebee's left shoulder plate from behind.

"I know. And your words are quite welcome Bumblebee, as are the concerns from the rest of you," she nods to him, "but I have been doing this much longer than you think."

Ella momentarily looks over to the table Starscream is at, but he is too engrossed in some data files on the screen. She notices that he has been downloading their science and tech information again.

"He may not be in that collar forever mind you. He's not to be underestimated as you Autobots say. Knowing him, he will find a way to get out of the subservience. He always has a way of doing things." Ella comments.

"You sound like you know him." Asks Hot Rod.

She turns and looks up to him, "I did once, but that was before the war started. It went downhill from there. Kup can tell you most of the story if you're willing to listen to it." A few of them sigh and complain about yet another war story.

"To be honest I think I've already heard it, along with all his other stories!" Kup shoots a look at his younger comrade.

"And those stories are from experience young mech, not that you'll ever get to my age. You're too content with trying to terminate yourself all the time." Comments Kup and some of the others shut up. Ella breaks the tension by laughing, and asking the visiting Autobots to follow her out of the rec room.

A lot of them couldn't hide their concern about Starscream being loose on the base. His presence was unexpected and they were well aware of who he was and what he was capable of. But at least he seemed to be contained for the time being.

Desonia calls out to Ella, "Ella wait, ya'll mahnd if ah join ya?"

"Sure." Ella waits while Desonia switches out of her Biomode and into her Autobot one. Sound Track picks up Ella and places her on her shoulder plate.

Jazz can't help but secretly admire the Autobot form of his favourite Earth songstress.

Sound Track picks up on his thoughts. "By tha way, sounds aren't the only things ah can hear!" Ella and Sound Track are somewhat amused. Jazz keeps his cool and smiles.

A large blast shakes the base and knocks most of them to the walls of the hallway.

"Are we under attack!" yells Cliffjumper as he gets his guns out.

Ella sighs and shakes her head in concern. "No need to worry Cliffjumper that's just noise from the labs, again! Jack has probably just blown himself apart again, or worse, Crash' is in there experimenting with chemical explosives again. Seeing as how I will have to now go and see what the problem is, we may as well show you the science laboratories first. Sigh. I hope I don't have to put anyone back together again like I did last week. That was a terrible mess."

"Oh ya'll mean when Ray wrecked one of your Lamborghini's, and himself in that process?" comments Sound Track.

Ella wasn't terribly amused by that situation; it had taken a week to have most of the surgery done for cybernetic prosthetics on their friend Ray. It was unfortunate as he was one of the Base's medics and was out of action resting as a patient in the medical bay right now. "Yes." Was all she said.

"Ok ya'll let's go!" Sound Track gestures to everyone to follow, and they go off to their first stop at the science labs.


	5. Chapter 5 Servants Of The Empire

In The Beginning

Servants Of The Empire

A mechanoid female by the name of Decellion escorted a small group of Decepticons to the Dominion Empire, namely Galvatron and his soldiers. The majority of them were staring in disbelief at the warm welcome they received from the locals they encountered, yet they still watched out for these strange beings as they were ordered to by their leader. Some of them were thinking along the lines of conquest also.

Galvatron thought it prudent at Cyclonus' request to halve the group. Cyclonus was left behind with Scourge and some others on Charr, to await further orders if needed. While he and the rest journeyed to this place, Omicron, to see if it was worth their time.

Decellion explained to them that as mechanoids themselves, any member of the Dominion would welcome them freely, so long as she was accompanying them, but only for now. Once the council had taken her back in, they would be free to roam wherever they wished within the Dominion Empire. She continued to explain what the Dominion was about. They believed that mechanoids were the superior life forms of the universe, and all other life forms were either not worthy of their attention, or unfit to survive.

It was this one little piece of information that made Galvatron smile. _'Now here are a people that know what they're doing,' _he thought. Many of the other Decepticons in their group thought the same thing also.

Decellion, as if sensing Galvatron's thoughts, turned to him. "There is much more here than you see, Lord Galvetron." She paused for a moment, and then casually pointed to a darkened fortress in the far distance, in the centre of a deep and seemingly never ending crevice. "That is where we must go." She looked around the technological landscape and found a transport that would be big enough for all of them. "The entire area around here is only just scratching the surface. There are many levels down below the surface that you cannot see, much like it is on Cybertron."

Some of the Decepticons with them were enthralled by the goings on with the locals, and seemed eager to join in. But they waited loyally by Galvatron's side until dismissed.

Decellion turned first to Galvatron, and then to his soldiers. "But we do not all need to go. Perhaps your soldiers can rest, relax and refuel here while we go and take care of business?" She motioned to the surrounds of the local area.

Galvatron's soldiers all eagerly awaited their cue to leave. Galvatron looked at the locals, and then at his soldiers, and ordered all but Shockwave and Soundwave to take their leave. He ordered them to stay within range and keep in contact until needed.

Decellion smiled to herself, and then escorted the three Decepticons up the road to the citadel with their newly acquired transport.

When they arrived they were thoroughly scanned at the entrance. The soldiers had a hard time trying to confiscate any weapons they had as Galvatron would not relinquish a thing, he would surrender nothing without a fight. In the end Decellion managed to convince them to let it be and escorted them all inside.

Decellion managed to also convince them to send word to one of the Councillors that she knew would recognize her request to be allowed into the citadel for further discussion with the council.

On the ridge outside the base, the three young humans had decided to hitch a ride into the base in the back of a supply truck that had come past on the main road leading past their campsite. It had come past at just the right time.

Laura, having had to stand back when her friend Ryan had seen the Autobots near the hangers, he had decided that all three of them should try to sneak in and get a look at the Autobots. Laura knew exactly where she was going, but she didn't want to let them know that. She had been asked to keep quiet about the hidden underground base. She didn't want to go along with them and tried to dissuade them, but when she did decide to go along, she was sure Ella wouldn't take it too badly, that she'd be bringing some outsiders in. She only hoped she wouldn't get into too much trouble if found out.

Once inside the hanger, Ryan had commented quietly asking the other two about where the Autobots had gone, not being able to see anywhere they could have disappeared to. Christine shrugged her shoulders. But they saw very quickly what had happened to them all when the elevator that the truck was on started to descend underground with a load of cargo on top of it, including them, still inside the back of the truck, still hidden away.

As the elevator reached the bottom, all three of them looked around. Christine indicated a hiding spot big enough for the three of them, and they quickly climbed out of the back of the truck, and raced over to it as the elevator clicked into place. Ryan and Christine were quietly enthused, and somewhat hopeful that they hadn't been spotted as they sat in their hiding spot.

But they had been seen. A mechanoid transformer named Crusade had seen them and walks over to their position. He comments something to the driver in the truck about the delivery and where to put it. And after watching the driver park not too far away and begin to unload their cargo with his partner, Crusade turns back towards the three youths. He stops in front of their hiding spot and crosses his arms, knowing Laura is with the group and waits for her to come out on her own, instead of calling her out.

Ryan exclaimed quietly, as he saw the mechanoid looking at their position. "Look out! Mech at 12 o'clock! I think we've been spotted." Christine also ducked for cover.

But both were confused when Laura sighed then walked out to talk to the mechanoid. "Hey guys, it's ok, really!" she said to her friends, as she turned back to look at them.

The mechanoid motioned to the two hiding and looked down at Laura. "Guten Abend Fraulien Banks." He paused for a moment. "Dey are not permitted here Fraulein, you must take dem back outside, now."

"Hi Crusade, how ya doing?"

The transformer just looked at her, and then looked at the others hiding.

"You know him?" asks Christine.

"Yeah, what's the deal Laura? You act like you've been here before?" questions Ryan.

"Yeah I know him," she pauses to see the hurt look on her friends face as she realises she has to tell them about one of her secrets, "And yeah I've been here before. This is where my family works. Not upstairs like the general public believes. At least not all the time anyway! And this is where I come every week for my treatments."

Crusade shifted his weight from one foot to the other impatiently, and then escorted the three over to the rec room bar. "Frau Commandant," he called over to Sonny, who looked up at him. "I found dese drei humans at de entrance to de base. Vhat do you vish me to do widh dem?"

Sonny glanced in the direction of Crusade's vocalisation, and then scouts the three with her scanners, smiling as she recognizes Laura. "Ya'll can just leave 'em here Cruz', ah'll deal with 'em in a click." She continued tuning instruments with the band members she was with and let the three youths talk amongst themselves in a booth off to the side of the stage.

"This place looks so cool," said Ryan taking shots with his camera.

"It sure is!" exclaims Christine, as both of Laura's friends look around as much of the rec room as they were able to. "Hey wait isn't that lady Sonny Lane that the mech was talking to? I thought she was dead."

Both of them look at Laura and she comments, "She's been down here ever since and that's not even the half of her story!"

Crusade left to attend to the arrival of the supply truck in the main foyer, leaving Laura at the mercy of her two friends, who had just started asking her a lot of questions about her knowledge of the place and the people in it. Over on the stage, some of the band members had a little laugh at Laura's predicament, being that they all knew the girl.

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the base in the medical lab, Stella was talking to someone, namely a human cyborg called Dr. Raymond Chalmers. He was the patient today, he had just had his cybernetic prosthetic legs replaced with new ones, and was wandering around the medical bay getting used to them rather gingerly. Last week, He had a problem due to him trying to drive one of Ella's sport scars. He had been involved in an accident which resulted in his legs being damaged and needing to be replaced.

Sunstar, in her human Biomode, as Stella, was watching her charge wander around the room, testing his new legs. "You will need to take it easy, Dr. Chalmers," said Stella, while she checked and changed some items in a nearby supply cupboard, while at the same time keeping an eye on her charge.

"Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later, turns out it happened sooner and not later as I'd hoped," he laughed, wincing uncomfortably. "It is a change though. Usually I'm the Doctor and everyone else are the patients. At least Gayle isn't here to give me a hard time right now!"

Being very careful to ensure he caused no more problems, she helped him to a nearby bed as he lost his balance.

"It's ok, Stel', don't get so disheartened about it, you did a good job on the transitional replacements. You certainly work well as a medic." he said as he sat down gingerly. "You should go and have a day off or something; you've been overworking yourself way too much and just let me get back to work."

She turned away, and replied, "I am fine, Doctor. I do not need time off from my work, I do have my duties to fulfil, and..." she trailed off, as Ella and the visiting Autobots entered the room.

Ella had brought them straight from the Laboratory. The group had been very impressed with the facilities thus far and wondered what else they would see on their tour.

"All o' this is makin' me wish ol' 'Jack and Ratch' were here to see it. Ya got a real nice set up here Ella." Comments Jazz.

Ella thanks him, and as she does so, lets her eyes fall on the resident patient Dr Chalmers who is smiling also at Jazz's comment.

Ella wasn't about ready to tell them something about Dr. Chalmers when they would find out the truth about him eventually so she just kept quiet for now. Maybe she would tell them another time or something, if it was necessary before they found out on their own.

She knew that a lot of them missed their old friends. But now was not the time to confuse matters.

Stella got up to greet them, and politely said, "Welcome," to all of them.

Ella nodded quietly to Stella, and then showed the Autobots around the room and gave them quick demonstrations of some of the equipment. She also introduced them to Stella, who she mentioned was currently the Doctor on duty, and also to Ray. She'd noted to them that Ray was the usual Doctor in charge but today, he was the patient, getting some cybernetic repairs done.

Unbeknownst to Ella however she was being watched keenly by two pranksters nearby. Getaway had set up a prank and had hauled his brother into the medical bay with him to see that it was set off on the right person.

However it didn't.

As Ella opened a cupboard to put some fresh towels away she got it.

She was covered from head to toe in green slime as a bomb device of some kind went off and sprayed her with the sticky goo.

She was wiping it out of her eyes when she heard the uproarious laughter coming from a spot near the entrance to the medical bay. Getaway wasn't impressed that he had managed to snare the Base Commander, but he still thought it was funny and laughed very hard.

Ray who saw them there proceeded to let fly with a few uncouth words and vehemently instructed them to leave.

"Make me Doc!" was Getaway's reply, "What are ya gonna do, come over here with those bad legs'o yours and beat me with your stick!"

Stella had to keep Ray back as he had gotten up. He was now laying into Getaway with a verbal barrage again and how irresponsible they were at setting up childish pranks in the medical bay.

The twins, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe noted to each other quietly, "Hey Sunny, that Doc, he kinda reminds me of Ratch' with all that swearing?" commented Sideswipe

"Yeah, kinda." Replied Sunstreaker.

Ella turns to ray and asks him to settle down and then she chases the two young mechs out of the medical bay.

Once they were out Gateway turns to his brother, "Ya know bro', she ain't gonna let us live that down. Ya know she's gonna get us back some time, right?"

Getaway just shrugs and says, "Who cares. I've had my fun for the day."

Back in the medical area Ella has just finished wiping off most of the gunk on her and Cliffjumper asks, "You seem to have your own hands full with a couple of troublemaking twins eh?" as he glances around at Sunstreaker and Sideswipe.

They both look at Cliffjumper innocently.

"Who us?" says Sunstreaker innocently.

"Yeah I resent that remark!" jokes Sideswipe.

Ella smirks at the two standing near her. "Those two would be a breath of fresh air around here compared to everything I have to put up with. Getaway and Gateway aren't the only set of twins, and they aren't the only pranksters."

"Then we should visit more often!" says Sideswipe.

This comment only serves to make Ella laugh, "I'm sure you're fellow soldiers would appreciate that Sideswipe. There are plenty more mechs her in this underground facility for you and your brother to play pranks on."

The Autobots were somewhat amused by Ella's comment, and Cliffjumper adds, "You can have 'em if ya want em!"

Stella, had returned to her work on a nearby computer, and was happily typing away on a report, oblivious to what was going on.

Ray was still irate but had sat back down on his rest bed but was still grumbling.

Ella tells all the Autobots present, "Optimus Prime is quite welcome to keep those two, considering what I know of their reputations!" jokes Ella.

She hears an unlikely screech outside as she notices something has happened. "Well it seems my punishment for Gateway and Getaway has come.

Ray locks eyes with her and manages a mirthful grin. "Serves the suckers right, turning my medical bay into a slimefest.

Outside the twins had been covered in Ella's own trademark goo. A leftover from a prank she had played on someone else a while ago that had not been set off. And she had made use of it for them now.

Ella had asked the Autobots to accompany her to another part of the base as part of their tour and she gets a good look at the twins writhing around trying to get up amongst the goo they were covered in. She and her guests give them a wide berth and she comments on the way past them, "Have fun boys!"

"Told ya bro'." says Gateway.

"Shut up and help me will you." Asks Gateway.

Both were covered head case to peds in slimey goo and it got a fair share of laughter from the passing guests and other nearby residents.

In the Dominion Citadel, Decellion and her three guests were being treated royally and were sitting back relaxing. But the council that Decellion had asked to see were busy disapproving her being there, and were conducting a session in her absence while she waited outside.

Her sudden reappearance had caught them off guard, being that by now she was only a legendary figure in their history and they also had plans of their own. They however were unaware she was listening in on every word they said.

"It most certainly cannot be her!" One councillor said adamantly.

"I agree," said another.

"We cannot allow ourselves to be distracted from our plans that are currently in motion." said a third.

"If she is who she says she is, then she can help us with them. She represents a power from the past," the second councillor spoke again. "However she must not be allowed to interfere with our plan to take what is rightfully ours."

A fourth spoke up. "Yes, she must not. Nothing must get in the way of the construction of our siege fortress. Nothing cannot and will not stop us in taking our rightful place as the superior species over the abhorred presence of this Alliance."

The first councillor replied, "We must take our action against the Alliance now while they do not suspect it, whether or not our siege engine is complete, we must take action now!" slamming his fist onto the table in front of him.

One spoke "The advantage of her turning up here the way she did, well, she has all the markings on her to prove who she was and we can use her to awaken the sleeping giant. She could once again become the leader of the Dark Covenant, but under our sole control."

Some of the other councillors had been aghast by his comment. It was bold and audacious. And they knew they had no hope of controlling Decellion if she found out where_ it_ was and keeping either under their control, but they could still use her as a weapon, and point her at the Alliance if they could, knowing that it would be in her best interests also do it.

At that moment, Decellion burst through the doors and said, "Yes councillor, let's. Let's show the Alliance our strength and the rightful place we are meant to reside over as the superior race; the only race fit to rule this universe." She paused momentarily, as she saw Galvatron with a smirk on his face.

He didn't notice her looking. He thought to himself, _'Why do all the work, when these fools could do the work for me?'_

"And I say, the time to strike is now, it is our right," she said lastly, but rather loudly. This got a lot of murmur and conjecture from the councillors. She had heard all of what they had said and was now curious what they were trying to hide from her, she decided to hang around and see what exactly _it _is.

"And how do you suppose we fortify our position, Decellion? We haven't had the best track record with breaking through their defences the past 30 million cycles since you abruptly left us." The councillor glared at her as though he was blaming her for abandoning her people. Decellion knew it wasn't her fault, she'd never admit that anyway. The Alliance had caught her off guard and imprisoned her all that time ago. She could see that the Dominion had moved forward without her assistance and control.

"I have gained an agreement from this one, Galvatron." She motioned behind her to where he stood with his arrogant strong bearing. "He is from Cybertron, and his soldiers stand at the ready to assist in whatever war we need to create to rid us of the Alliance once and for all." She paused for a moment to gauge their reactions. She did not know for the moment that Galvatron was planning to use the Dominion's resources to take on Cybertron and the Autobots.

The Prime Councillor spoke. "You were once the glory of our race Decellion. You have been gone a long time and now we can take care of ourselves. But seeing as how you saw fit to rejoin us at this present time, it will be an auspicious future for the Dominion."

Galvatron decided to take his leave with his companions after having a quiet word to Soundwave. He inconspicuously hid Ravage in his cassette form under a table, out of sight, on the way out.

Back in the rec room bar, Laura had just finished trying to answer all the questions her friends had inundated her with, when her cousin Jaycin gambolled into the room with a couple of his miniature transformer toys her aunt Gayle had made for him. She recognized them as spitting image replicas of Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, who were his favourites of all the Autobots.

But just then, Laura saw Ella walk in with her Autobot entourage, she wanted to hide and not be seen. Jaycin hadn't seen them yet, but does so now, as Ella picked him up and put him onto her shoulders, he sees the Autobots behind her. She espies Laura trying to hide, and smirks, but lets her be where she is.

When Jaycin saw who was standing behind him, he gasped and became speechless, as do Ryan and Christine. Laura, however, had been in the presence of transformers before, and so was not too surprised at their sight, but she did allow herself a good look at her favourite Autobot, Bumblebee.

Sideswipe spied the small cars and asked, "What are these?"

Ella replied with a smile. "Well, being that you and your _'oh so handsome'_ brother," to which Sunstreaker smiled and poses slightly at her comment, "are this little guy's favourite Autobots, his mother went and made little models of the both of you, and also several others." She put Jaycin down, who was still staring at the twins.

"They even transform too!" Jaycin said nervously.

"Cool!" comments Sideswipe, "Do ya mind showing 'em to me kiddo?"

He nods and calls to the small cars, "Streaks, Swipes, up and at 'em."

They at first did nothing, and then Ella says "C'mon guys?" The small cars transformed and walked over to Ella, climbed up her clothing until they both reached her shoulders, and sat themselves one on each side of her head.

Sideswipe laughed at the little bit of entertainment and said, "Can you imagine that? Us Autobots as toys!" laughing all the while.

Sunstreaker didn't seem very impressed at all, and added, "Perhaps the humans could find something better to do with their time than mimicking us." All the while, Jaycin had picked up mini Sunstreaker off Ella's shoulder and put it onto the nearest table. It was now mimicking Sunstreaker's pose, crossing its arms also, while the mini Sideswipe was making faces at him. The entertainment was making several of them in the room laugh heartily.

Ryan asked Jaycin, "So, kid, what other models of these guys you got?" His thumb pointed to the Autobots.

The Autobots looked at Jaycin, who suddenly became shy about all the faces looking at him. "Um... ah... well."

Ella saw his distress and commented, "A fair few." Then she pulled out a replica gun from her pocket, a Walter P38 to be precise, and also a sights lens from her other pocket and connected the two. Jazz noticed that it was a full replica of Megatron's old Earth transform to every last detail.

Ella laid the gun out on the table, and tapped it. It transformed to its robot mode, crossed its arms, started tapping one of its peds, and then stopped and started waving its finger at Ella. She smirked at the mini Megatron and said, "You can go back to ruling my pockets shortly." She reached over for the mini mech and held her hand out. "I quite often find them hiding in my jacket pockets and recharging there or in my office when I'm in there, because of the energy my body gives off."

The mini Megatron launched itself into the air off the table and started transforming as Ella reached for it and she grabbed it in mid air. "But the cute thing is," she said, pointing the gun at the wall, "is that all of them are fully functional as they would be if they were fully sized." Firing the gun, it had a similar blast effect on the wall that the original Megatron would have had, if he were here doing the same thing, only not as big a blast area. She then returned it to her pocket. The wall she had shot had started its repair programs and started to mesh back together again, which startled a few of the visitors as they hadn't seen that type of technology before.

Jazz decided to interject and add a joke, "Wish we could have gotten Megatron to be obedient like that." A few of his team mates joked aloud and also laughed at the notion.

Just then, a mini Jazz came zooming into the room with a mech spider on its roof. It skidded sideways and stopped within millimetres of Ella's right foot. Laura recognized the passenger, and called out to the mech. "Ah, there you are, Spindle, I was wondering where you'd gotten to." The spider had made its way over to Laura and climbed up her clothes and to the top of her head. Laura was completely unperturbed at having a mech spider on her head. She looked down to the mini Jazz and said, "Thanks J'." The mini robot transformed and bowed gracefully. The real Jazz started laughing out loud at seeing a mini version of himself.

Ella picked up the robot and put it on the table with the others.

"So, what do they do around here?" asked Bumblebee.

"Just small stuff, errands, mail, etcetera," replied Laura.

"How do you know that?" exclaimed Ryan. "You seem to know an awful lot about what goes on here, you know?" he added angrily. Christine joined in by crossing her arms and glaring at Laura.

"C'mon guys, give me a break. I couldn't tell you until now ok? They swore me to secrecy," she replied innocently.

Ella looked at both Christine and Ryan, and said to them both, "She's right, you two. I'll have a word to her later about that, but now let's sit down and maybe if these guys are willing…" pointing to the Autobots all standing behind her, "they might answer some questions you guys have, or did you just come here today to get angry at Laura and stare blankly at the Autobots behind me?"

Ryan and Christine, faced with the possibility of a dream come true, shook their heads and sat down quietly.

The Autobots all moved to various parts of the bar to rest before heading back home. Kup however looked around the room and noticed a certain mechanoid wasn't present any longer, before sitting down with his comrades.

_'At least Starscream isn't here anymore.'_ He thought and he relaxed somewhat as he slumped back into his comfortable seat and enjoyed some high grade energon provided by their host.

Most of them were quite happy to answer the questions they were asked, except for Sunstreaker, who was sitting aside with his twin brother away from the group.

Jaycin walked up to his table with his mini Sunstreaker in tow, interrupting the drink of energon he was having.

Sunstreaker looked at the human and said, "What do you want, an autograph or something?"

Sideswipe, listening to his brother, says, "Go on Sunny, it won't hurt for you to have yet another fan of that ego of yours!" He laughed as he said it slapping Sunstreaker on the back and getting a cold look from his brother for it.

The females that were tuning their instruments on the stage had stopped and since exited the bar to put their equipment away, while the conversation was going on. Some of them went elsewhere on the base, while two of them returned to the rec room. They had transformed out of their biomodes and then came back in their mechanoid modes. Their entrance back into the bar didn't go unnoticed however.

Vanguard elbowed her companion and said to her, "Looks like you've got admirers boss lady!" She had seen some of the Autobots having a look at the new mechanoid.

Sound Track doesn't show any emotion on her face and shrugs, but several of the Autobots look at her.

Cliffjumper asks, "Vanguard, who is this?"

"Who do ya'll think ah am?" asks Sound Track.

Jazz was taking a drink of energon when he starts to splutter his drink, at noticing his favourite musician of all time is most definitely his type. His jaw drops.

"Ya'll ok Jazz?" asks Sound Track. Jazz regains his composure for a moment and then plays it cool.

"Sure I'm just fine!" and he continues his energon drink getting a few snickers from his comrades about his spluttering.

"That folks is Sound Track," says Ella watching the mechanoid checking over her arm gauntlets. "Team leader of this base's main team, the Roughnecks."

Sound Track stands there in front of everyone and gracefully bows while Ella proceeds to tell the visiting Autobots all about her bases team and what exactly they do here.

Back in the Dominion council chambers, Galvatron and his soldiers were listening in on Decellion's conversation with the councillors. He had agreed to Decellion's plan to hold back and not speak his mind at all while she was addressing the council, only upon advice from Shockwave however. She had said if they were to be convinced, they needed a word from her about what they intended to do. Galvatron had plans of his own, after seeing what he had of Dominion resources so far, he'd made his decision.

Decellion herself had not come straight here from Charr either. She had made a side stop and recovered her precious Death Strike body shell and then had come here, knowing that the council would most likely rebuke her identity.

"And what do you intend on doing with these so called Decepticons, Decellion?" asked the Prime Councillor.

"It's not what I would want to do with them," she said slyly. "It's what they can offer us."

"Oh, really? Please tell me how they would be beneficial to us?"

"They are seasoned soldiers who believe in the same causes as us. And I believe they would be of use to us if we allowed them to join forces with our own soldiers and participate in our attacks against the Alliance." she replied.

The head councillor looked at her. He knew the reputation she had according to their history books, and a large part of him was still very much disbelieving that he had a living legend to his people standing right here in front of him. He wanted to believe the others and go ahead with their own plans without her interference, but he had to agree with one or two others that her power would be beneficial also. "Very well, Decellion, they will be given the appropriate accommodations and supplies for their _future_ efforts." He stressed future then paused a moment to gauge her reaction. She did not respond however. The Assembly discussed this for some time before the Prime Councillor announced, "Assembly dismissed."

Decellion bowed ever so slightly to the Prime Councillor and some of the others on their way out, and casually grabbed Ravage from the desk, where Soundwave had left him.

Once outside, she tossed Soundwave's cassette to him and said, "I was going to tell you what went on in there," She looked first at Soundwave and Shockwave, and then long at Galvetron. "But seeing as how you already know, there is now no point."

Shockwave was busy analysing her every move from his logical standpoint.

Galvatron looked over this mechanoid, and was disgusted with the fact he was forcing himself to work with her. But he had to wait while his plan was being carried out.

Decellion, meanwhile, had turned to look out one of the windows of the citadel at the town below where the other Decepticon soldiers had been left earlier. She slowly scanned the dark countryside, filled with spires and technological marvels reminiscent of Cybertron before the war that erupted between the Autobot and Decepticon forces.

Without turning to Galvatron, she stated firmly, "The Council has granted us to be allowed to leave to carry out our business. They are going to supply you with everything you need to build a better base of operation on Charr and will be sending us back there with amiable supplies."

Galvatron did not take very kindly to being ordered around by this strange mechanoid, but he tolerated it. He discussed the information with Shockwave and Soundwave, and then followed Decellion out of the Citadel.

Back at the Dragon Valley base on Earth, Flashdance and Joyride had joined the others in the rec room. However Joyride wasn't upright for very long as she passes out for some reason.


	6. Chapter 6 Behind Enemy Lines

In The Beginning

Behind Enemy Lines

On the planet Papillon, a little fairy-like female alien stared out into the stars, from behind the metal bars of her prison cell. Her name was Belle Donna. She was older than some of her Papillon people, having shared her life with a mechanoid called Joyride, who she knew was now on another planet somewhere else in this big galaxy. The Dominion had struck without warning; she and her people were unprepared. Now all she could do was sigh and sit down in the corner of the jail cell, and concentrate on her old friend, who was now billions of light years away on Earth.

On Earth, a mechanoid known as Joyride, had been starting to walk into a rec room where she currently resides with her elder sibling mechanoid, Flashdance when she had a sudden attack in her mind and lost control of her motor functions. She had passed out on the floor near the entrance of the rec room, prompting the others to go to her aid and put her up on a lounge and tend to her condition.

"Anyone got any ideas as ta whah she passed out?" asks Sound Track who was wiring her up to some emergency medical equipment that was kept in the rec room, "Sigh."

"She was fahne one minute then out the next?" Replies Flashdance who helps her twin to set up the medical equipment.

Sound Track monitored her condition till Sunstar turned up with other items to discover why it had happened. She watched as Sunstar did her initial check and waited till she was done.

Sunstar however was rather perplexed as to what was going on and let Sound Track have her turn at seeing what might be wrong.

As she was telepathic, it didn't take her long to see that someone was inside her little sister's head trying to communicate with her. Years ago she had disconnected her piloteer system, but Casey and her piloteer, Bella Donna, had been great friends and their connection had surpassed even disconnecting the link system they had, allowing communication between them to remain operational on a telepathic level.

Ella had since left with the visiting Autobots to see more of the base, and had only just returned to start seeing them off home when she spied what was going on. Ella motioned for the visiting Autobots to find a place out of the way. "Ladies? What's the verdict?" she asks

Sunstar looks between Ella and Sound Track, and then let's her maternal unit speak. "It's somethin' ta do with that Papillon lot." Answers Sound Track.

Just then Ella got a call on her private comms link, that she lets the teams use inside the base. Part of the left side of her face turns from a human like beige colour to metal and ejects from her face to form a microphone that she can speak into. "Yes, what is it Crusade?" she answers.

"Madam Commander, I think you should come to the control room post haste and bring your new Autobot friends, this may concern them also." said Crusade from the control room.

Ella replied, "Ok, I'm on my way." She turns to the others, "Sunstar, take JR down to the medical unit to rest and recover. Sound Track, you go with her to see what else you can find out. Flashdance, you join her and see if you can get any visual information." Then Ella quickly leaves for the control room.

Sunstar promptly gets up and looks at Sound Track and Flashdance and nods to both. Flashdance follows along quietly, followed by Sound Track who has lifted her younger sister up in her arms and carries Joyride out of the rec room.

"What was that about?" asks Kup after everyone has left.

Jazz was sitting next to him and just shrugs his shoulder plates.

Vanguard explains, "That youngster still has a connection with her old pilot." She sat back and downed the rest of her energon beverage.

"Pilot?" asks Hot Rod from the next booth.

"Yeah." Responds Vanguard, "You guys have a whole different life style to the Deltronian mechs and transformers. When we get a chance to, I'll ask Ella if we can take you for a spin on one of their planets for a bit." Vanguard notices Kup smirking. "What's the deal old mech, why the smile?"

"Heh! Some of the stories I could tell you about the time I visited Delta Four!" he responds. But before the others could respond and ask Kup about it, Ella came thru on the base audio systems.

"Vanguard, could you escort our visitors to the control room please?" Just as she was getting up and gathering her old comrades, Ella sends through another message, this time to Vanguard's comms link, "And grab Freefall on the way through could you."

"Sigh. Ok no problems, will do Commander." She answers and notices the puzzled looks on the faceplates of the Autobots with her on the way to the control room. "Don't worry guys! Whatever it is, it's gonna be fun if the boss lady wants our other team leader, Freefall, to join us!"

When the Autobots espied the sheer ominous presence of the other femme that joined them on the way to the control room, they almost didn't want to follow. But Vanguard didn't bat her optics at all while she was explaining to Freefall why she was wanted to leave her team in the middle of training them. All she did was look at the wary Autobots and then quickly stride off towards the control room ahead of Vanguard and the others, who followed not far behind her.

Later in the control room when Freefall, Vanguard and the other Autobots walked in, Ella was talking to the commander of the Alliance Air Command Unit over a view screen; her name was Airbourne, a femme transformer, and she and Ella were having a rather heated discussion.

"Well, what kind of back up do you need, Airbourne?" Ella said abruptly. "The Roughnecks team don't have any wingers, other than Sunstar and Freestyle. Sunstar is busy tending to medical duties and Freestyle isn't here, she's on leave. The Alliance has all my best pilots, what else do you expect me to do, go and pull a rabbit out of a hat, or something?"

Airbourne had heard this term before from a human, but didn't expect to hear it coming from Ella. "We were caught off guard by the attack, Commander. We were all keeping an eye on the Dominion's positions but something happened, something unexpected." She paused for a moment noticing Vanguard and the Autobots walk in behind Freefall on the screen behind Ella. "Since when did Optimus Prime's soldiers start working for you?" she asked.

Ella looked behind her to see them. "They don't. The team was introduced to them not too long ago. They're here today for a visit and tour of the facilities. I'd rather not let them get involved in our affairs. The fight between the Alliance and the Dominion isn't their fight." Airbourne was momentarily distracted by the sound of gunfire behind her group's camp. "The information that Crashcourse got for us a month ago helped, but still doesn't account for this." she said, motioning to the background fighting.

Jazz and Kup were looking at the screens and spied something familiar. Jazz said, "If the Decepticons'r involved we want in!"

Ella wondered what he was referring to when she looked at the screen. She heard a call to arms behind Airbourne. Her base camp was now under fire. Some soldiers were falling at the weapons blasts of Dominion mechs and she realised they weren't Dominion weapons blast signatures at all. She smiled and said to Jazz, "Very astute Jazz, recognising those blast signatures before I did. I would say belonged to Astrotrain or Blitzwing, right?" All of the visiting Autobots' optics were now on the screen in front of her. "Look over there in the distance to your left, Airbourne, that's Astrotrain, he's one of Galvatron's soldiers, what is he doing with Dominion mechs under his control?"

"Nothing good." Comments Kup who had walked up behind Ella to view the screen better.

"That's what I was trying to tell you. It seems the Decepticons and Dominion Army have teamed up." Airbourne saw who she was referring to, then turned her head back to the screen, and commented, "If Galvatron has joined forces with the Dominion, then we're in for the long haul, old girl. This is gonna be an all out war, for sure."

Jazz replied, "That would explain why the Deceps 'ave been so quiet lately, 'Prime told me before we came here that they were up to somethin', but we didn't know what, and now we do."

Airbourne looked at Jazz and the other Autobots through the screen from the planet she was on, and said, "You guys are good soldiers and all, I've heard about you and your reputations, but this is our business, I don't think we need extra bodies lying about." She stopped for a moment to receive a data pad from one of her soldiers, and then continued. "I think it would be better if you didn't get involved; your very lives would be on the line every minute of every day if you got involved in this war."

"I don't see how that's any different than the war we've been fighting with the Decepticons of our planet in the past," said Sunstreaker, matter-of-factly. "Only now, at least we'll have something to keep us from getting bored."

Airbourne pursed her lip components at his comment. Ella placed her hands on the console, looked down to the floor, and sighed.

Airbourne had just read the data pad she had received and comments, "Ella, you've been given orders to proceed apace with that project you were working on." Airbourne says, and then she continued, "What are you going to do about them? You can't make the call to let them get involved in this fight. They'll have to make the choice on their own."

"Yes I know." She states dryly

Ella looked up at Airbourne for a moment, and then nodded in agreement. Then Airbourne turned off the monitor on her end and Ella turns to face the others behind her.

Downstairs in the medical ward, Sunstar, Flashback and Sound Track were attending to Joyride, waiting for her to wake again.

"She's gonna be ok, rahght?" asked Flashdance to Sunstar.

"Oh, she will be just fine now. This happens every now and again with the Excel' types, it's just a residual link between her and her former pilot and..." replied Sunstar, but was unable to finish as Joyride suddenly sat bolt upright, got up off the medical bed, and bolted out of the room.

Laura, who was a friend of Joyride's had wandered down to the medical bay with her other friend's, Christine and Ryan, she was worried about Joyride's condition. They had only just arrived when Joyride suddenly swept past them running.

"I wonder why she's in such a hurry?" queries Laura as she flattens herself and her friends against the wall to avoid getting trampled by the anxious femme.

Flashdance had appeared at the door to the medical bay. She looked to see Joyride run off down the hall then glanced at Laura and her friends and then turned back to the others and said, "Shouldn't we go aftah her ya'll?"

Sunstar was none fussed about it because she knew that Joyride was alright, so she just went back to her medical work. Sound Track however walked over to her twin and commented, "If we know her ya'll, she'd be heading' straight for the control room."

"How do you know?" asked Christine.

Sound Track had known that Laura and her friends were there but she didn't bother to acknowledge them when she first discovered their presence. She just looked at Laura's friend, "Well that's where she always goes when there's trouble." She stated dryly.

She started to walk out of the medical bay but about half way down she turns to look at Flashdance who was still there in the doorway talking to the humans. "Flash!" she called, "Ya'll bettah take em home." Then she walked off out of site, leaving Flashdance and three humans alone outside the medical bay.

"Com'on ya'll let's go." Asks Flashdance.

Aww!" whines Ryan, "Just when things were getting good!"

Laura and Christine had a laugh about his comment as they all walked over to the elevator to exit the base.

Laura understood why Sound Track was asking for them to leave the base. They weren't regulars and nor were they briefed on safety and security protocols like Laura was. They didn't need ordinary humans running around when the base was on alert.

Up in the control room, Ella had asked Landslide, Nightfall and Crashcourse to fall in. Sound Track had also joined them along with another unexpected face that the Autobots recognized.

Ella had gotten some others from outside Sound Track's team to assist with the upcoming fight.

"Just how many Decepticons have you got running around this place anyway? I thought he was dead?" questions Kup.

"Looks like we'll get lots more damn Decep's poppin' up from the dead if we stay around here any longer." Comments Cliffjumper as he smacks his fists together, "More chumps to turn into scrap!"

A few of the other Autobots laughed. The newcomer named Nightfall wasn't impressed. He raised a brow and then looked from Cliffjumper to Ella as if to say, _'Are you going to let them talk to us like this?'_

All Ella could do was giggle to herself. She knew that she had remade a fair few transformers and now had them living on the base, both Autobots and Decepticons. Nightfall was indeed considered dead once. It was a deed she had performed herself. Something that Kup already knew as he looked down at her wondering why Nightfall was here again. "Nightfall will be going along on the mission. You won't have to worry about watching your aft's if you do decide to come along. He's loyal only to Freefall, no one else, and Freefall's loyal to the Alliance. But two others will be joining us momentarily." Just as she said it two humans walked into the control room and sat down quietly to one side.

As some of the Autobots were eyeing off Freefall and Nightfall suspiciously, Jazz was thinking to himself as to what call he should make as he was in charge of the group of Autobot's.

He knew some of his team mates were keen to join in any fight against the Decepticons, there was also the fact they had not seen this entire base and he needed more information to pass along to Optimus on exactly what it was they did here. And he was going to have to choose who stayed and who went along.

"So Jazz, this is your group? I would prefer if you and the Autobots under your command didn't get involved but it is your call. Which way is the coin going to fall?" Ella asked him.

"We're goin'." He stated flatly. He got several whoops from the others but then they died down when he finished what he was saying, "But not all of us'r goin'. Half ta stay, half ta go ok."

"Fine." Ella paused seeing the pained look on his optics through his visor as to who was going to go. She knew there would be complaints no matter who he chose. "I'm taking along Sound Track and some of her team, as well as Crashcourse." who had just turned up in the room.

They were shortly followed by Joyride, who was low on energon after having bolted the whole way there after taking a detour somewhere else and getting some items. "An' I be goin' too!" she said trying to take in some air to cool her motors.

"Okay Joyride, since this mission directly concerns an old friend of yours, you're going too. Freefall and Nightfall, Crash' and 'Slide as they know the terrain, and also Henry and Peter will be joining us." As she motioned to the two humans sitting aside. Henry was pretty much straight faced, as was Peter. "This is mainly a scouting mission, I'm sending in Freefall and Nightfall to accompany Joyride to find her old friend who's in trouble," she paused as she noticed Jazz and Kup chatting to themselves as to who would go. "Jazz?" who looks up to Ella, "You and two others can come along. Might I suggest Hot Rod and Bumblebee, as they would both be useful for the terrain of this place?"

Jazz looks around at everyone then says, "Sure. Sounds fine to me!"

Sunstreaker looked at the Jazz annoyed, "And what are we supposed to do? Just sit here at this base and do nothing!"

"Pretty much Sunny'!" Comments Jazz.

Ella sees Sunstreaker's annoyance at being left behind, as well as that on the faceplates on the others here

"What about the rest of us?" asked Cliffjumper, disappointed about not having been included, motioning to himself, Kup, and the twins.

"Like I said, Cliffjumper, it's a scouting mission, not a battle mission, at least that's all I can tell you for now." Ella paused a moment, and then said, "Besides, if I need you guys, I can always call you in, ok?"

Jazz commented, "Just chill, lil' buddy, this is their thing, ya know? We gotta play by their rules for now ok." Cliffjumper just grunted, and then sat in a seat away from the others not happy about being left out of a fight against Decepticons.

Ella then turned to Kup, and said, "I want you, Cliffjumper and the twins to stay on the base; you can do what you like till we get back. Contact Prime on Cybertron if you want."

Kup smiled at her, and said amusingly, "You know, it's good to be working with you again. I hope you'll bring Jazz, 'Bee and 'Rod back in one piece."

She laughed at his comment, and said on the way out the door, "Great to be working with you again too, old friend, but you know me! It's not like I'd bring them back dead now is it?" She winked, and left with the team she'd assembled.

"What was that about?" asked Cliffjumper.

"Never mind for now." replied Kup.

Jazz had asked Kup on the way out to send a message to Optimus and also to Ultra Magnus back at Autobot City, hoping that they would still be there. He had also pulled Cliffjumper and the twins aside after the rest of the group had gone a bit of distance and he had told them quietly to gather as much information about this place while he, Bumblebee and Hot Rod were gone.

They had all gone off to whatever parts of the base and left Kup in the control room alone with Crusade. "Hmmm. Right now, I gotta get onto Prime on Cybertron and Ultra Magnus at home base." He said to himself, "Now how do you work this thing!" He looked at the communication controls. The console in front of him was very high tech and not like anything he'd ever seen before, and Crusade, walked over and flicked a switch, setting the radio frequency for him, making Kup feel like a real idiot seeing how simple it was to activate.

Downstairs, Flashdance was escorting their human visitors to the entrance to take them home, with Vanguard having accompanied them from the bar when she saw them walking about outside.

"This is one place you don't wanna be right now, guys!" said Vanguard.

Ryan and Christine, who wanted to stay, object to being pushed out of the base so quickly. "But we wanna stay and look around!" whines Ryan, objecting adamantly.

"Can we at least keep one of these mini mechs to prove that we were here?" asked Christine, with mini Jazz sitting on her shoulder.

"Nah, these little guys aren't allowed off the base. One, you can't tell anybody you were ever here," Vanguard said, returning to her Biomode and then taking Ryan's camera and removing the film. "And two, Ella let you onto the base deliberately today; she knew you were here the whole time, even if only for a short while. She just let you in to show you what was here and to let you know she thinks you can be trusted."

Vanessa gently took mini Jazz from Christine's shoulder, with Christine asking, "How do you know that."

Vanessa smiled at them, "Well it's obvious that she didn't say one word to either one of you about why you were here, and she let you stay and listen to everything didn't she." She put the small mech on the ground, whereas it gave them all a thumbs-up, transformed, and drove off back towards the bar to where Jaycin was waving at them, who then turned and left for his quarters with several mini mechs at his heels in vehicle modes.

"Your cousin's got some pretty cool stuff!" commented Ryan, as Flashdance motioned them onto the elevator to exit the base.

"Yeah I know, you should see his room!" replied Laura a little while later.

Vanessa stayed behind, watching them leave and then when they were out of site transformed back to Vanguard and went for a wander around the base.

On Cybertron, Optimus Prime was just thinking how quiet it had been lately, and in the last conversation he'd had with Jazz, it was about the Decepticons being too quiet. Until he'd received a call from Kup on Earth from an unknown frequency. Certainly not Autobot City, but somewhere else.

Kup had explained and given Optimus more information on the secret base belonging to these other alien mechs that Jazz had written about in a previous report. He had to admit that he was curious how a group of transformers like them had been able to keep their existence a secret from not only them, but also from Megatron and quite possibly the humans, for Primus only knew how long.

'_It was a query for another time,' _he thought. Right now, he had to deal with the daily goings on of Autobase in Iacon. And he only just recently sent a team out to a planet called Nebulon, to investigate some Decepticon activity.

Kup had also told Optimus about a mission to a place called Papillon that he had not heard of, and how Jazz, Bumblebee and Hot Rod had joined Ella and some of her fighters. He had informed Kup to not bother calling Ultra Magnus on Earth as he was no longer there, telling him that he was already on his way back to Cybertron. He decided to let Ultra Magnus drop in on this Papillon considering the circumstances and see who was apparently there causing the disturbance. He let Kup know this after he had asked for the co-ordinates of the planet.

Once Kup had signed off on the radio call he sat back and thought to himself. He went through everything that he had read in Jazz's reports lately and now what Kup had told him. This Ella, he thought, he would need to meet and greet in person, but again that would be for another time.

On Papillon, Ella had met with Airbourne and some members of her military division.

She had told Ella they were not currently on assignment on Alpha Central, and rounded up who she could for this mission, but only getting five members of her team on duty. She had also explained that while the still free members of the Papillon race on the continent they were currently on were being a great help using their somewhat supernatural powers against the invading Decepticons and Dominion Destrons, they were slowly being overcome by their sheer numbers, and knew that they would be unable to mount a rescue mission for the Papillon people who had already been captured.

Ella had already sent off Joyride, along with Freefall, and also Nightfall, to attend to a rescue mission. Ella, meanwhile, had introduced the Autobots to Airbourne and she had told them some information about Airbourne and what she did.

Airbourne and her team of soldiers had managed to barricade themselves in another place and held the invaders at bay. The other place was a Papillon castle and had been overrun by Destron soldiers. They had retreated to another castle which was much more secure and had held their place.

Airbourne greeted Sound Track as she herself was once a member of the old Roughnecks team and had not seen Sound Track in the light only knows how long. She did notice that Sound Track had gained more of a steely and icy visage since she had last seen her, probably the result of the happenings in her life to date. She was not worried about it though.

She took everyone aside and showed them a battle plan.

Ella had sent them out in teams. Sound Track and Jazz to scout the east in the lakes area. Bumblebee and Landslide to scout the west near the large forests. And Hot Rod went with Crashcourse to the north along with Ella aboard to the rocky plains. While Henry and Peter stayed with Airbourne to help out at the base in case backup was needed in a hurry.

Elsewhere on the planet, in an area the Dominion mecha had taken over and secured, was a castle they were intending to use to capture even more slaves than they already had, and then sending them off world.

Three mechs, Nightfall, Freefall and Joyride, were wearing their Deltronian soldier badges, were sneaking past guards and other mechs to get to the captured prisoners. Freefall had motioned to them all to keep quiet, and they were all using as many hand signals as they could.

A group of Destron mech soldiers had just gone past their hiding place, and Freefall motioned the other two to keep moving towards the captives, once they were out of sight.

Nightfall noticed the guards around the jail cells, and indicated to Joyride and Freefall. Freefall let Nightfall take aim and knock out the three mech guards on duty there. Then they moved quickly to free the prisoners.

Joyride found her friend, and pressed her finger to her lips to show them all to keep quiet. Getting into the base had been easy, getting these prisoners out would be very hard. Freefall decided to split everyone up into three groups; Nightfall took one group and headed back out the way they had come, Joyride took her group through the secret passageways, as she used to work in this particular castle and knew every secret of it, while Freefall took another secret passage shown to her by Joyride's friend, Bella Donna.

Outside on the field, where all the fighting was going on, Ella was with Crash' and Hot Rod. They were hiding behind a rocky outcrop and observing the main force of the enemy right ahead of them, not too far away. They spotted a familiar face not too far from them, but Hot Rod didn't keep his head down after being frustrated at having to hide and now they were being fired upon.

"And here I thought this was going to be a simple scouting and rescue mission!" mused Crashcourse. Hot Rod had transformed and taken off after Runamuck who had attacked them. Crashcourse had transformed and opened his driver's side door for Ella to accompany him, "Hop in and lets drive like mad!" Ella started laughing at his humorous madness and frivolous nature.

"It's very easy for the game rules to change with these guys," comments Hot Rod who had rejoined them. They had been chased to another area. Hot Rod had transformed back to his robot mode and attacked Runabout. He got him into a headlock and punched him in the face several times before dropping him, as he finally went offline.

Ella scanned the surroundings to see who else was fighting atop some outcrops above the other two. She saw multitudes of Dominion Destron mecha combat units in the vicinity. "This is going to be along day!" she mused.

She had put a call through to Airbourne's base to radio back to her own base for reinforcements, but this was when she discovered the radio signals being jammed.

Up in the air, Airbourne, with other present members of her team, Rainmaker, Weathervane, Cloud Bank and Wind Rider were all having fun with Ramjet, Thrust and Dirge. The Decepticons were having a hard time getting their shots in, due to the team work the female jets had with each other. Just as one Decepticon took a shot, the femmes manoeuvred out of the way by only inches, continuing to evade being hit.

At least they were, until Blitzwing joined the party. He was able to take down both Weathervane and Cloud Bank, in two consecutive shots. And he was about to take a third shot at Wind Rider, when her team leader, Airbourne, took the hit instead, not only saving Wind Rider's life but endangering her own with severe injuries. She had crashed to the ground and transformed to her robot mode, and she was vulnerable. With Blitzwing bearing down on her, she couldn't even get to her feet to move herself away, due to the damage to the motor relay functions in her legs. She slowly began to edge herself away, but Blitzwing had caught up to her in his tank mode. He transformed to his robot mode, grabbed Airbourne by the neck, and brought her face to face with him.

"Say your prayers to Primus, Auto-clutz," he said viciously.

Seeing what was happening down below, the remaining two jets, Wind Rider and Rainmaker, could sadly do nothing to help as they were outnumbered by the three Decepticon jets, who had forced them to an area of the sky that was away from the battle and they could not land safely.

On approach to Papillon, a Cybertronian shuttle with Autobots on board made its descent into the atmosphere. Aboard the shuttle were four Autobots that Optimus Prime had assigned to assist with the fight at his request, detouring their flight to this planet instead of to Cybertron. None of the Autobots on this shuttle had been to this planet before and knew very little about it, only that the native people were like small humans.

Ultra Magnus was at the helm, watching the battle from the cloaked ship from above, when he spotted three of their comrades, Jazz, Bumblebee and Hot Rod, amidst the fray of battle. The other Autobots he had never seen before, but recognized some to be female transformers, like Arcee. "Blurr, put the ship down over there in that clearing," he said, indicating a small, clear area of grass big enough for the size of the ship.

He turned to the rear of the ship, which was fully loaded with weaponry. Springer and Arcee joined him, ready to disembark. Blurr did also, once the ship had come to a full stop, and he had secured it for landing procedures.

Nearby, Crashcourse was trying in vain to outrun a Destron mech who was on his tail. He had been separated from Ella and Hot Rod almost an hour ago and lost his bearings during the fighting.

In his Earth vehicle mode, he was just barely keeping ahead of the Destron, when he noticed the Cybertronian ship on his scanners. It was invisible but hiss canners could still see it, and with the speed he was travelling at, he had just enough time to slam on his brakes to a dead stop.

At that moment, Ultra Magnus and others disembarked from the ship. Not understanding what was going on, the Destron mech fled in the other direction rather than risk his metal skin and get hurt, leaving Crashcourse alone, with the cargo bay of this invisible ship beginning to open.


	7. Chapter 7 Viral Infection

In The Beginning

Viral Infection

At Dragon Valley base, Sunstreaker was having a hard time keeping himself occupied while waiting for his comrades to return from Papillon. He had since amused himself with watching a human zipping around the base, along with two other transformers in their silver Corvette vehicle modes. It had been mentioned to him that these two were the same twins they had encountered earlier on the tour, only now they were not using their Pretender shells.

Vanessa had passed him on the way back from the entry elevator, and had told him they were playing laser tag, that and the human on the motorcycle who was with the two, was keeping them out of trouble for the day. He was also told that the human's name was Rayleigh Wheeler.

He had already recognized her as a retired race car driver he had seen on the human's television sports programs years ago, when she was still racing.

He had free reign to wander the base. He stopped by several rooms around the main entry. Then he had found something that caught his attention. He came across Ella's prized car collection in one of the rooms. "Now here is someone who knows beauty when they see it." He commented quietly to himself.

"That she does," came a feminine human voice. He looked down to see Sunstar in her Biomode admiring the cars alongside him. She had been very quiet and he had not seen or heard her approach. He looked at her strangely and she picked up on his curiosity. "Your sensors would not have been able to see me. My inbuilt dampeners hide me from most. It is because of my radioactive power core. Everything tends to be absorbed." She sighs as she turns back to the cars, "They certainly are works of art, are they not? I do not think they are ugly at all in design for such a primitive species, do you?"

"You admire the primitive design of their machines?" he asks her.

"Not all. Just a select few. I have, after all some aesthetic tastes. I admire the beauty of their simple designs and the methods they use to make them." She responds.

Her response surprised him. Not only was she a medic, but she also appeared to be a somewhat talented warrior. _'Not at all akin to my own skills of course.'_ he thought. But she had aesthetic tastes too.

"Hmmm," he smiles to himself. If it wasn't for the fact he wasn't as interested in femme's of his own kind as his twin brother was, he might actually be interested in this one. _'Femme or not, I don't think she'd ever measure up to my standards anyhow.'_

He walks off in the direction of the combat arena he had seen earlier and leaves Stella to her admiration of the collection of Earth cars.

On the way there he meets up with his brother, "Where have you been?"

"Nowhere really bro'!" remarks Sideswipe gleefully.

Sunstreaker picking up on his brothers comment, decides to vocalise his opinion "Sideswipe, you're a lech, you know that don't you?"

As they both sit down to watch a couple of transformers from this base, train down below, Sideswipe says back, "And don't you know it!" and turns his attention to the scene below them again.

Sunstreaker looks down also and smirks at his brother's comment

In the main fray of the battle, Bumblebee was making good use of his agile driving whilst evading shots from several Destron mechs that had set their sights on him.

Landslide had come out of nowhere and blasted several of the enemy mechanoids that had gotten the jump on Bumblebee. "Thanks for that!" he said as he drove past her still in his vehicle mode away from the marauding Destrons. She nodded her head as she disappeared behind her cloak again and started attacking the Destrons from under the visual protection of her special skill.

Elsewhere, Jazz and Sound Track had teamed up in a secluded area against several mechs. They were running around so much that Jazz had lost sight of his temporary partner. He had chased a mechanoid into a waterhole, but the mech was suddenly set on from behind by Sound Track.

He had been surprised by her location. She had been underwater in the lake they had come to, fully immersed by the liquid. Sound Track had taken the mechanoid completely by surprise, jumping up from under the water and had dealt with it swiftly.

"Doesn't look like anything slows you down! Not even water!" jokes Jazz.

Sound Track looks at him then states, "Water jus' speeds it up ya'll." She faces away from him and starts collecting molecules of water from the lake around her hands. This startled Jazz, he had seen nothing like it. It was like watching one of those Earth martial arts movies with special effects. Sound Track gathered the molecules into a ball of water and thrust it forward towards a group of Destrons that had just come up over the rise in their direction freezing them on the spot.

Jazz had never seen any transformer do what he had just seen her do. He stood there looking at her surprised.

She looked in his general direction, but not directly, and said, "Do ya'll want somethin'?"

He replied, "How'd you do that?"

"It's called power streamin' ya'll. Stay 'round us long 'nough and you'll learn 'bout it." She paused to look in the direction of more Destrons that had arrived at their location, "But for now ah think we should take care o'this." She said jumping into a fight with the nearest Destron and disposing of it so casually.

"No problem!" jokes Jazz. He thought to himself that this one was a lot deadlier than he first thought, and it was a good thing that she was on their side.

On a rocky outcrop somewhere else.

Blitzwing had just had the wind knocked out of him by Hot Rod in a surprise attack. He had been knocked offline. Both Ella and Hot Rod had been separated from Crashcourse and had somehow ended up on the main front line of battle.

Hot Rod had taken the heat off of Airbourne. She had thanked both of them for their help, but still couldn't get up.

"She needs medical help." Commented Ella.

"O'course she does!" said a familiar voice. "I was in tha area tryin' ta shoot as many o'these Destrons as ah could!"

Ella turned to see the face of her friend Henry riding in the driving seat of his mech vehicle, a small red truck with a utility tray on it. He had gotten the opportunity to sneak up on them both during the fight, keeping the fire away from them, making full use of the weaponry in his truck to dissuade the Destrons getting any closer and driving them away momentarily.

"Ya need help?" he asks in his Southern American drawl. "Put'r in tha back. Ah'll take'r back ta camp."

Ella responds, "Ok." She watches as Hot Rod picks up the injured transformer and places her gently in the back of Henry's trucks utility tray and he then drives off when Airbourne is secure.

"Well that's one less damsel in distress we need to worry about. That human kinda sounded like ol' Ironhide though!" jokes Hot Rod as he dusts his hands together. He notices that Ella is distracted by something, "What is it?"

Ella was listening to a radio signal she had intercepted. "Just Joyride reporting in. She and the others have achieved their objective and are back at camp now."

"Great!" exclaims Hot Rod. He notices the approaching Destrons and sees Blitzwing in the distance coming around and transform to his jet mode and take to the air along with Astrotrain and the other seekers. "I think I should get you under protective cover little lady."

Ella raises her brow at Hot Rod and scoffs at him, "I don't need protecting. But I do know a couple of mechs that can help." She proceeds to radio the Papillon base and gets Freefall and Nightfall to help out by using their alt modes, Nightfall in his Earthen Blackbird SR-71 Jet mode and Freefall in her Indigo coloured mech dragon mode.

In the clearing not too far away, Crashcourse was conversing with the new arrivals.

"So, who'r you dudes s'posed ta be?" he said, addressing Ultra Magnus.

Springer just looked at him and didn't comment. Arcee and Blurr look on waiting for Ultra Magnus to say something.

Ultra Magnus replied to Crashcourse, "We are the reinforcements sent by Optimus Prime on Cybertron."

"Well, didn't even know any'd been asked for but you Autobots'r welcome to join in any time!" Crash' said back to them casually, and then transformed and drove off towards the fight. "The fight's over this way, dudes and dudette, follow me!"

The others looked at Ultra Magnus, who said, "Create a perimeter search and try to find our comrades." All four transformed and followed Crashcourse in the direction of the fighting that was going on elsewhere.

Three young adults, namely Laura and her two friends, Ryan and Christine, were being escorted off the base by a red Porsche Boxter named Flashdance.

They hadn't believed it at first, but Ryan and Christine were aghast when they saw Felicia change from her Biomode to her robot mode, and then transform into her vehicle mode.

She had allowed them to stop at their campsite and pick up the equipment they'd left behind. Having left a car there, they packed it up and left. And Flashdance followed them in the rear making sure they all got home safely.

Laura rode with Flashdance while the other two rode in Ryan's car. They drove first to Ryan's place first and Flashdance decided to stay for a bit with them.

On the Papillon battlefield, the Alliance jets had received news that their injured leader was now back at base camp receiving much needed medical attention.

They were still trying to fend off Astrotrain and the three Decepticon jets. That is, until Freefall and Nightfall showed up. Freefall went straight for Astrotrain, transforming to her dragon mode mid flight. She left Wind Rider and Rainmaker, along with Nightfall, to deal with Ramjet, Dirge and Thrust, and they were making short work of them, and also coping with the sudden appearance of Blitzwing.

On the ground, Ella had welcomed the reinforcements from Cybertron. Crashcourse had raced off before he gave any information on them, but Ella already knew who they were.

Ultra Magnus saw that they had Jazz, Hot Rod and Bumblebee in their company, as well as some other females like Arcee he did not know.

'Magnus sent Springer and Arcee to fight alongside Sound Track and Jazz, who had just come back from the nearby lake area after having taken care of the mechs they were fighting, when more of them appeared.

Jazz greeted Springer and Arcee quickly, "Glad you guys could make it!" he jokes.

"Looks like a fight I wouldn't miss for the world Jazz!" jokes Arcee in return getting out her blasters and joining the fray of Destron mechanoids. Her joke received a chuckle from Springer.

Henry had returned from base camp and had joined his friend Peter with his own battle car, and were doing their best to drive the Destron mechs either back, or off, the planet. Bumblebee and Blurr had also joined them and, slowly but surely, were driving this small group back.

At the Dragon Valley base, Kup, Cliffjumper, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker had all gone to the combat area of the rec room, and were enjoying the show that Burnout and Vanguard were putting on with their training.

Kup and Cliffjumper weren't terribly interested in the fight, but the twins were watching intently. They were remembering their glory days of pit fighting before the war.

They however were in for a surprise. It started to become interesting when Vanguard cupped her hands in front of her and charged up a ball of lightning, projecting at in Burnout's direction.

"What in the Pits was that?" asks Cliffjumper nearly jumping out of his seat at the shock, "I don't remember transformers, let alone females being able to do that!"

Kup rubs his chin, "I think I remember seeing something like that when I visited Delta Six last. I think they call it power streaming. Externally channelling their energon and using it as a weapon. It's a martial arts technique no longer used on Cybertron. It was banned some time ago before the war because it used up too much energon."

"Well it looks like it was never banned in the Delta system and it doesn't look like Vanguard has a problem using it!" exclaims Sideswipe, "I wonder how they do it?" Both he and his brother had their optics glued to the Arena below.

"Tha' was nae fair lass. Ye know I cannae do tha', figh' wi' ye fists! We agreed tae only a fist figh'." yells Burnout in response to Vanguards power streaming blast.

"Well, you're not one to agree to any rules anyway Rusty, but if you insist!" says Vanguard amusingly. She attacks Burnout head one with a flurry of standard boxing type punches.

Burnout doesn't evade each one, and gets hit with one or two. But this only serves to infuriate her more. And the more infuriated Burnout became with each hit, the stronger her return punches became. It got to the point where Vanguard was becoming drained from using her personal shield to protect herself from the strong blows.

Burnout had gotten to the point where her body had begun to glow faintly with fire like energy.

Vanguard was just on the verge of letting Burnout have the practise match when a welcome distraction caught their audio sensors.

It was at that moment they heard a loud screech outside the rec room, followed by a horrendous ripping and crunching noise, and then a whole heap of very foul language.

Burnout's attention was momentarily focused elsewhere and Vanguard just got up and left the arena.

"We're ya goin'? I've nae finished wit' ye!" bellows Burnout as Vanguard leaves.

"In case you haven't noticed Burnout there's something more important to attend to right now!" she calls back.

Burnout starts to calm down and her glow fades. She growls at being denied a fight then joins the others in walking up the steps to where they heard the noise.

"What in the Pits was that?" asked Cliffjumper. The other Autobots got up to go, seeing as how the practise match they were watching had finished.

"More work to do, right Stella?" Vanguard turned to face Stella, who had just turned up from the medical centre, having also heard the noise.

"Well, that's the end of that show," jokes Sideswipe, "Now we've got another one here!"

In the now empty arena, a bunch of mechanoids had begun filing in, namely transformers, others who lived on the base. They belonged to the group headed by Freefall. They had taken to think that because Vanguard and Burnout had left the arena, that it was now empty and they could have their turn to fight.

Everyone else who was not part of their group was outside the arena with their attention focused on the recent crash.

Among this other group was Starscream. He did not want to be here on this base, and he certainly didn't want to be with this group but he had no choice. The collar that had been placed around his neck could not be removed as far as he knew, and so he was content for now to wait until he had the opportunity to get out of there. The smirk on his face revealing he had an idea he was willing to try and use to get free.

He watched several of his comrades spar first, and then when it was his turn was paired up with a familiar face. Since being brought there to this base, he had been shocked to discover the existence of some old comrades that he knew had been terminated on Cybertron a very long time ago. He had not yet had the chance to discover how they had been resurrected, but he did discover that they were pretty much the same as they were before, with notable exceptions. Like him they all possessed Biomodes, but unlike him, they were not confined to the base.

Starscream having found out that several of his resurrected comrades had had to live through the restraint collar as he was now doing. It gave him a hope that he would be able to rid himself of this collar at some stage if he was willing to wait long enough, but he of course wasn't. And if there was a record of how the collar was removed then he could research the computer systems of this base to find it, and also gain his freedom while he was at it.

During his sparring session, he came up against his 'brother' Sunstorm. He noticed that Sunstorm was still pretty much the prattling religious type he was before, the same as he was when he was also accidentally revived as a clone several years ago, as he still now was. He didn't like how his brother always carried on about such things. He was a scientist, not a raving religious loon like Sunstorm.

It got to the point in their sparring where Starscream had his hand badly injured by Sunstorm and he couldn't move it. He would have to fix it himself seeing as how that medic was now occupied outside the arena.

Sunstorm noticed the damage and said, "I do apologize for your pain brother, but have a little faith and all shall be well."

He slapped away Sunstorm's hand on his shoulder plates, got up and stormed out of the arena to return to his quarters.

In his room he had gathered many items he had managed to steal from around the base to try and remove the collar from his neck, but none had worked. He had also taken anything that may be of use in trying to escape this infernal mech hole as he saw it, but so far, nothing he had found had been successful. He was getting out these same tools to help work on repairing his hand when he remembered what his bother had said. As he thought about it, he saw it. He had thought about his hand being in one piece again and watched with incredulous disbelief as it healed itself. He smiled to himself and stayed sitting where he was for a moment, to reflect on this apparent new ability and wondered how he could utilise it.

On the battlefield, Hot Rod, Springer, Ultra Magnus and Ella have all ended up together.

"Nice to see you're not getting someone shot for a change, Hot Rod!" Joked Ultra Magnus

"I'm sorry, was that a joke, coming from you!" Hot Rod laughs.

Ella stifled a small laugh over the comment.

Ultra Magnus decided that they should go in two different directions. In the short time he had been here, he had already gone over enemy's battle positions and laid out the best possible attack strategy. Ultra Magnus and Springer went one way, and Hot and Ella went another.

"So are you going to actually do any fighting or am I going to win this war all by myself?" asks Hot Rod when they had arrived at a suitable covered area.

"I think you'd be better off doing it on your own, besides you have your Targetmaster partner helping you out, you don't really need me here." She remarks.

"And why are you here then if you won't be doing any fighting?" asks Hot Rod's partner Firebolt rather curiously.

"Perhaps I am just biding my time till the right moment to start fighting." She answers in return.

Ella knew about his Nebulan partner. She knew part of Hot Rod had accepted the Targetmaster transition to get away from Cybertron and the apprehensive nature of some of the other Autobots in regards to his involvement with Optimus Prime's death the first time around. Many had dropped their opinions since Prime's return, but he still didn't like being reminded of his involvement in that incident from the past and the mistake he had made that day.

"Hey, Hot Head, you gonna start covering your back, or am I gonna have to protosit your charred terminated body?" said Ella to a distracted Hot Rod. "Whatever's on your mind, snap out of it, looks like there's some work to be done!"

Hot Rod looked at her stunned, he wasn't expecting hard case comments from the Autobots' new companion, she seemed so nice and pleasant before, now she was a completely different person, especially out here on this battlefield. It actually made him smile to see this side of her. He transformed and opened his car door for her to get in just as the enemy came up over the rise.

Looking in Hot Rod's rear view mirror, Ella could see several dozen Destron mech's chasing after them. "Geez they're fast!" exclaims Hot Rod. He was having a hard time getting up enough speed to outrun them. The ground was uneven and it was murder on his shock absorbers. Ella had already hit her head on his roof once or twice from all the bouncing around, and then she'd finally had enough.

"That's it!" she states. She reaches over to Hot Rod's steering wheel and the moment she touches it, everything starts to glow faintly.

"Hey, what's happening? Ella what are you doing?" asks a confused Hot Rod, "I've lost control of my drive system."

"I'm sorry to do this without asking you Hot Rod, but it's needed for now." She tells him.

"I think maybe now I understand why you don't fight. Especially since you can do this." He says as Ella steers Hot Rod far away from the marauding Destrons and into a secluded area. She relinquishes control over Hot Rod and gets out. He transforms and squats down to her level. "Whoah, what a rush! That was some ride you sent me on Ella, care to tell me how you did it?"

"I would if I could Hot Rod, but that stunt didn't buy us very much time and I…" Ella suddenly cuts off what she was saying as a laser blast goes right through her. She looks down at the wound and puts her fingers on it, feeling the black blood coming out. _'Stupid!'_ she thought, _'That little stunt with Hot Rod drained your shield and sensors and left you vulnerable. Cybertronian mechs just take too much energy out of you when you help them away from Cybertron.'_ She passes out just as Hot Rod reaches down and scoops her up. He notices the blood flowing from her wound and quickly heads off in the direction of the base camp for medical help.

At the base, Stella had come out to the accident, and had seen all she had wanted to see. One of the base employees, Rayleigh Wheeler, had been clipped by one of the Corvettes, and both had gone straight into a wall at high speed. By the time all the others had joined Stella, she was trying to help Rayleigh find all her body parts.

Rayleigh was leaning over the crushed bonnet of the Corvette. "Hi, guys!" Rayleigh waved with her one arm, as she noticed some of the others congregating at the accident. "I'm ok really, Stella's just helpin' me find my parts."

"Parts?" asked Sideswipe. "So you're another cyborg or mech or something?"

"Yeah," she said. "I got converted to full cyborg years ago, after the last race I had, and that crash, well...as you can see right now, I'm not altogether in one piece" she trailed off, as Stella handed her the rest of her other arm. Now, having two arms, she helped herself up and continued. "Hey Stella, my other leg is over there." She pointed to a crushed and twisted leg in amongst Gateway's mangled front end.

"Ugh! Now that is just plain freaky!" exclaims Cliffjumper.

As soon as Stella touched it, it became normal again, turning from crushed and mangled, back to its original state as the energy she emitted from her hands activated the nano metal material in Raleigh's body parts. Some of the others hadn't seen Stella's special skill before, and were quite surprised by it. But it was only usable while she was in her Biomode. Especially when she pulled Gateway out of the wall, and placed her hands on the mangled wreck that was his hood.

It changed the same way as Rayleigh's leg had, and all damaged parts reformed to be as good as new. Gateway beeped his horn at a smiling Stella, and took off in a rush, not bothering to stay and get yelled at by his brother who had already taken off and left him behind or even explain what had happened.

Rayleigh was left behind, shrugging her shoulders at everyone who wanted to know what had happened.

"That sure is a neat trick to have!" Sideswipe turned to his twin and nudged him. "Whadya think, bro'?"

However, before Sunstreaker got a word in, Vanguard spoke up. "Yeah, a pity she can't use it on herself. I don't know how many times we've had to patch her up in her mech form when she's our only medic here on our particular team."

"Though it'd be hard for anyone to get through that diamond hard electrum hide of hers, anyway," said Freestyle. She had snuck up on the group while they had been occupied with staring at the accident and were surprised by her sudden voice. "Though some have tried!" She looked in Burnout's direction, who smirked at the comment.

"Wha'r'ye lookin a' me for. Tha' las' figh' we 'ad twas nae me faul'!" Burnout replied innocently.

"Yeah sure!" said Vanguard snidely.

On Papillon, the remaining Decepticons had fled once the Destrons had started to get driven back by the extra help of Ultra Magnus and his crew.

Unknown to the helping Autobots and Alliance mechanoids was the fact that this battle was only a diversion set up by Galvatron at Decellion's suggestion. What it was that they were after was yet to be revealed.

The Papillon people that were still mainly alive and unhurt from the fight were now helping by disposing the dead body shells from the battlefield. Small as the people were, they were quite physically strong, and able to deal with the body shells of the Destrons that were left behind.

The remaining transformers were all taking a break near the base camp. Due to their efforts, the Papillon were letting them take a well earned rest and were doing the clean up themselves as a thank you to them. For the most part, they were just scuffed up.

"Be grateful." says Airbourne "They were probably after more slaves for their mines rather than conquest, but those Cybertronians? You'd know their motives more than we of the Alliance would." She points her query at Ultra Magnus.

Not many in the Alliance had ever come across Cybertronian Decepticons, as they were too caught up in their war with the Autobots to bother with the Alliance.

"I'm sorry that I cannot be more helpful Airbourne. I'm at a loss to explain exactly what those particular Decepticons were up to, let alone teaming up with enemies of the Alliance." 'Magnus replies. He had since been able to bring his ship right to the base camp seeing as how it was safer, and reports were coming in from all over the continent that the Destrons and their new partners had begun to leave the planet.

"We will find out in time perhaps." comments Airbourne. Her attention was momentarily distracted when a Papillon medic asked for her. She reached down and received news on the medical condition of Ella and Hot Rod.

Sound Track had also come out with the diminutive medic. Freefall and Nightfall were listening closely, as were the rest of the group.

"We gotta be headin' back home, lahke rahght now." She says.

Crashcourse perks up and asks, "But how we going to do that? We don't have a ship; it could take weeks to get back. The closest place to here is…" he trails off, "Cybertron."

"Cybertron?" Continues Springer.

"Precahsely." Answers Sound Track.

"We can help give you all a lift back to Cybertron." Says Ultra Magnus, "Are you sure there is nothing more that can be done for Hot Rod?"

"Ah'm sure. Ya'll have scientists back home, ya'll'd be welcome ta trah. But its unlahkely seein' as how Ella is a Bioroid an' her nano-blood affects anythin' it touches. It's not his fault ya'll, he didn't know that bah touchin' a Bioroid's blood, 'specially Ella's, that that would happen ta him."

Ultra Magnus quickly got all their guests to pile into his battle cruiser and had all secure themselves for the trip.

At Dragon Valley base, Crusade had contacted Vanguard about an urgent call on the interstellar comms from Sound Track; she, Stella, Burnout and Freestyle had gone to the command centre with the remaining four Autobot visitors, and had just finished listening to the call.

The ladies were worried about Ella's condition, and had agreed to Sound Track's request to meet them on Cybertron. Freestyle had opted to stay behind to look after the base, so that had left Burnout, Stella, who had changed back to her robot mode, and also Vanguard.

All four of the visiting Autobots went also, and the mechs walked through the Dragon Valley base's instant warp gate to Cybertron.

"Pity that gate of yours is only one way!" comments Sideswipe, "Ah! Home sweet home!" He transforms and heads off in the direction of Iacon, with Cliffjumper and Kup not too far behind.

"Yeah, can't wait to see what Trailbreaker's gonna say!" said Vanguard jokingly.

Burnout looked at the metal landscape, and swore at it under her breath, then followed Vanguard in her vehicle mode, leaving Sunstreaker and Sunstar alone for a moment.

Sunstar surveyed the entire landscape, before commenting. "They have done quite a lot of architectural repairs, have they not? It looked like a war torn landscape the last time I saw holographic videos of Cybertron." she exclaimed.

Sunstreaker looked around. "Yes they have, haven't they?" he pauses a moment and reflects, "There are other more beautiful places than this to see here on Cybertron."

"Perhaps, you could show them to me, if we get the chance to do so." She promptly replies.

Her comment caught him off guard. He was beginning to like this femme and her artistic interests. But for now he wanted to head back home with the rest of his comrades. He promptly transformed and moved off in the direction the others had gone, and with Sunstar, also transforming into her alt mode, not far behind.


	8. Chapter 8 A Visit To Cybertron

In The Beginning

A Visit To Cybertron

On Earth, more specifically at Ryan's house, the three humans had gone inside thinking they'd said goodbye to Flashdance. But once they'd closed the door, she appeared in the house in her hologram form, scaring the life out of Ryan when he had turned around to switch the light on.

He looked out the window and saw the red Porsche Boxter, and turned to see her also inside, confused. "Wait, if you're out there, and you're in here... how is that even possible?"

Laura answered, "Hologram!" as she passed her hand through Flash's holoprojection. "She can make it solid, too." Just as she was about to pass her hand through Flash' again, Laura hit a solid light emanation.

This also prompted Ryan and Christine to touch her solid light hologram. They were very amazed at what they saw and felt.

"Wow," said Christine. "It even feels real! So how did you learn how to do that?"

"We can all do this," replied Flash'. "But only if we have a holomatrix projection system, and get ta use it within a short distance of out bodies ya'll, but me, ah get about 100 metres distance out of it." She sat on the nearest couch and smiled.

"Wait, just wait," said Ryan suddenly. "You mean all those years, you and the other friends of Laura's aunt that used to pick her up at school, they were just holograms? Geez!" He slapped his head in frustration. "Why didn't I think of that? I always thought there was something weird about you lot, but I just thought it was because you were just military officers or something!"

Flashdance continued to smile. "Ya'll don' know tha half of it, kid!" She winked at Laura.

On Cybertron, it had been several stellar cycles since Optimus Prime had laid his old female companion, Elita-1, to rest along with some of her soldiers, to rest in a special chamber, some distance from Iacon.

He had come here today as it was an anniversary of her termination. In the time he had been on Earth, he had learnt to honour the dead more, but after all this time he knew it was always hard to mourn all the friends, and especially the loved ones, he had lost in the course of the war against the Decepticons.

"I was beginning to think you would not come today, young Orion," said a lone figure from the shadows.

"You haven't called me that in a long time, old friend! It is good to see you again, even if you are just a living hologram." said Optimus, as his 'old friend' came out of the shadows to reveal himself as Alpha Trion.

"Well, it would take more than a Cybertronian war to do away with me!" He replied amusingly. "I have survived this long. I think I will last a bit longer, don't you think?"

Optimus Prime smiled at his old friend's sense of humour behind his faceplate. He knelt down to read the plaque on Elita's burial tomb, as he did every stellar cycle when he came here. "I only wish I could pay homage to the others that died, about ten stellar cycles ago. Apparently, Rodimus and the others had put them somewhere else, and their tomb was destroyed by necessity. I don't remember much about that particular incident, but all I have to honour them now are their memories, the noble sacrifice they made on my part for this war." Optimus sighed, and Alpha Trion placed his hand on his shoulder.

"Don't blame yourself for their deaths, Optimus; it's never easy having to deal with the hardships of being the leader everyone depends upon, no one mechanoid is perfect. I've been there and done that, remember!" He paused a moment, and looked in the direction of Iacon from inside the tomb. "Besides, we have guests to greet..."

In the time it took Optimus to get up and go to the entrance of the tomb to look at what his friend was referring to, Alpha Trion had disappeared. When he looked back to say goodbye to his old friend, he noticed this, but did not worry.

He knew that as old and wise as Alpha Trion was, he generally showed up or disappeared when it was least expected, and always when needed. He transformed into his Earth truck and trailer mode, and headed back to Iacon.

"...and history to uncover," Alpha Trion continued, after Optimus left, and was slightly amused with the events that were now unfolding.

At Iacon, Burnout, Sunstar and Vanguard were looking out from a balcony at the metropolis around them.

"It's hard to believe that so many mechanoids still live here, despite the war going on around them," said Sunstar.

"Yeah," replied Vanguard. "That's my old home for ya!"

"Wha's tha' over there, lass?" Burnout asked Vanguard, pointing to somewhere in the distance.

"Well let's see, from what I remember, that's Altihex, for deep space research and observing the stars and such. All the brainiac geek-bots generally tend to congregate there. That is if the Decep's haven't trashed the area yet."

"And what would that area over there be for, Vanguard?" asked Sunstar politely.

They had not seen the tall, bulky figure walk up behind them, and as Vanguard was about to answer, he did it for her, at the same time grabbing her in a great big bear hug from behind. "That would be Nova Cronum, a hub for philosophers and theoretical research," said the visitor.

Vanguard relaxed as soon as she heard the familiar voice and snickered to herself. The others turned to see who had joined them, and Vanguard smiled. "Well, big brother, I can honestly say it's great to see you again, even after all this time!"

"And you don't know how pleased I am that you're still alive! I mean look at you, still in one piece and fully functional, albeit a little shorter than usual," he joked, noting that their heights no longer matched, "I'm going to have to call you _little_ sister now!" said Trailbreaker.

They went to shake hands, and Trailbreaker soon realized that it was his sister that was now stronger than she ever was before. "Ok, I give." They let go of one another's hands, and start to walk away from the group on the balcony to catch up on old times and their lives away from each other.

While Trailbreaker and Vanguard were having a hearty chat about what they'd done in their lives since they last saw each other, Burnout, not too far behind them, was bored out of her mind over their conversation and wanted some action. And wandered off to find the twins for some fun or a fight to pick with someone.

Up on the balcony, Sunstar had some time to herself to look around. She looked first at the two areas they had talked about, and then looked down at the areas below her, where she could see the twins, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, conversing with one another on the level below hers. They noticed her, and she gave them a nod of her head, whereas they gave her a suspicious nod in return. They were obviously planning some prank, she thought, as she had heard of their reputation.

But then something caught the corner of her optics. She noticed a shuttle was inbound to the landing pad nearby. It vaguely matched the description they had been told of Ultra Magnus' ship. So she assumed it was that was carrying the Cybertronians, and also her friends, back from Papillon. Sunstar vaulted herself over the side of the balcony, rushed past the astonished twins and onto the landing area ahead, at full speed.

In the shuttle, Blurr and Springer were at the controls, landing the ship onto the Cybertronian surface. Jazz, Ultra Magnus, Arcee and Bumblebee, along with Crashcourse and Landslide, were in the passenger seats, while Sound Track and Joyride were attending to Ella, who was still unconscious within the medical carry unit she was in. Hot Rod was also present, who had since passed out on the way back to Cybertron from the nano-blood he had gotten covered in from Ella's wounds.

Nightfall and Freefall had ridden along outside the shuttle, due to lack of space, in their jet modes, and had transformed on the landing pad alongside the landing shuttle. They had only opted to do so due to the fact, before they had left Ultra Magnus had recognized Nightfall and was suspicious. But the two had opted for being outside as they had enough fuel for the trip and could fly through space.

Sunstar, having only just caught up to the landing shuttle, rushed in with Freefall when the shuttle bay doors opened, to assist with Ella and Hot Rod. Since Sunstar, Sound Track and Freefall were all immune to Ella's nano-blood virus, they put the patients onto the hoverbeds that the medical teams had brought out, and were quickly taken to the medical bay.

At Dragon Valley base, in the private quarters that had been provided for him, Starscream had found himself some implements to assist him with the little experiment he was about to conduct on himself.

Having seen what had happened to his hand and the seemingly instant healing it had performed not long after, he wanted to test how much further he could push this new ability as he was still unable to find a way around transforming into his robot mode and getting out of this place because of his restraint collar. He wasn't able to get near the armoury as he had been locked out of it by the base's sentient computer, but had found a laser knife in the kitchen, and proceeded to slice his left hand right off. Wincing in pain, he had gotten part of the way through, when the wound started to heal. He pulled out the knife, and allowed the rest of it to heal. He looked at both sides of his wrist, no marks at all, no sign that he had even cut himself in the first place.

"Remarkable," he said out loud to himself. "Instant nanomesh healing. I've heard of this, but still, it's definitely remarkable and will be very useful indeed. Now I just have to figure out what other modifications Ella has made to my system when I was rebuilt."

On Cybertron, mechanoids only had limited healing abilities, but nothing as quick, painless and scar free as what he had just experienced. He had thought about trying it on his collar, but had gotten an electrical feedback in response to the cutting tool touching it, and had found out about the wiring being threaded deep into his cybernetic system. _'It would take forever to get it out of my body completely.'_ He thought.

"Humph." He smirked at his predicament for a moment, and then started laughing at the novelty of it all. Being trapped on a planet he hated, inside a form he didn't like, with nowhere to go, no one to fight and nothing to do. He slumped back on his resting platform and switched off his optics, to again think about how he was going to escape his current imprisonment.

At the Iacon Medical Centre, Sunstar had all but thrown out the medical staff, and had started working on Hot Rod herself. She had surmised that nothing could be done for Ella other than wait for her to wake herself up. Hot Rod was a different matter entirely.

Perceptor was very perturbed at the removal. "This is indeed not a very comfortable predicament, at being removed from my own laboratory." He commented to Sound Track and Freefall, who were looking over the goings on from a viewing room above the medical area.

Freefall looked to Perceptor for a moment, and then turned her attention back to the medical area then left to go back outside. Sound Track, who had her head turned away from the viewing screen, turned to Perceptor's general direction, and replied, "Well Perceptor, ya'll'r good at ya job an' all, but what we're dealin' with here is Deltronian tech, and that ya'll is her department." as she thumbed behind her through the viewing screen, to her daughter below. She knew that with the radiation and the nano-blood virus, Sunstar would have to fix everything by hand. And it would be a painstakingly slow process.

Elsewhere at Iacon, in a recreational area, Burnout and Vanguard were awaiting the results of Sunstar's work. They had been joined by the group of Autobots they had allowed onto their base earlier in the day's cycle, that afternoon on Earth.

In the background, there was a lot of noise going on, as Burnout and Sideswipe were engaged in a wrestling match. Sideswipe was not faring very well as he was positioned on his front with Burnout sitting nice and cosy on top of him with her legs crossed. When Burnout finally let him up she congratulated him for keeping up with her.

Vanguard sat back in her chair with her energon refreshment, enjoying their fight. She was bored because there was very little to do but sit and wait for the surgery to finish, and as much as the others in her team, she was worried about Ella.

At tables to one side of the room, near the two sparring mechs, Jazz, Bumblebee and the two cybernetic humans, Peter and Henry, were conversing. Henry and Peter knew about the Autobots and their connection to them, but under private orders from Ella, they were not to reveal their true identities.

But Jazz was beginning to suspect something about them.

Jazz had thought to himself that these two humans reminded him so much of his old friends, Ironhide and Prowl, even without realizing what he was thinking, as Ella had told him on the tour of their Earth base that anything and everything in the universe was indeed possible as he liked to believe, and seeing first hand that Ella had a knack for bringing the dead back to life, he begun to think, letting his processors run wild with ideas.

He had read somewhere years ago in an Earth library about certain humans believing in a process of recycling sparks, or their souls, what they called 'reincarnation'. At the time, he had thought it an interesting concept, and kept the data file on it, but what he was beginning to see, he was beginning to wonder whether terminated Transformers could reincarnate also.

Jazz suddenly got up and left the room, explaining he had something to do. Peter followed him shortly after, and politely excused himself for other reasons, to see what Jazz was up to, as he had suspected his cover may be blown; he never did discount Jazz's intelligence.

"Now what was that all about?" said Cliffjumper, as he joined Bumblebee and Henry.

"Who knows?" answered Bumblebee, with just enough time to duck out of the way before Burnout and Sideswipe accidentally trashed the table they were sitting at.

"Well, thanks fer tha warnin'!" said Henry, annoyed.

Cliffjumper and Bumblebee were quietly conversing amongst themselves about how familiar Henry's voice sounded. And they wondered about some of the other humans in Ella's company also.

Burnout motioned to Sideswipe for a time out, and helped Henry to his feet after getting covered in table debris. "Sorry there Henry, didnae mean to try an' crush ye." she joked towards Henry.

He replied, "Hmph." waving her off after getting to his feet, and went to move to another table.

Meanwhile, Burnout had dusted herself off and asked Sideswipe for a rematch. She turned her attention to his twin and asked him over for a two on one.

Burnout doesn't recall who it was that mentioned she had bearings to take on both twins at once, but she just shrugged and fought both anyway.

It had been Cliffjumper who made the comment and he had decided to watch the match with keen interest. With some others also taking interest, and even some talking of making bets on the outcome of the practice fight.

Vanguard saw this and said, "Oh, great! Now they're gonna tear up the place. Well I guess I'll have to set up a shield so no more tables get destroyed!" The others laughed at her little joke.

Trailbreaker, Springer and Blurr all entered to join them, waiting for the outcome of the surgery. The worry on Blurr's faceplate about his friend, Hot Rod, was clearly showing.

In the medilab area, Optimus Prime had showed up to check on their progress. Kup, Ultra Magnus and Arcee had also joined him on the way from the control centre. Having noticed Sunstar putting away her implements and coming up the steps to their level, Optimus asked her, "How are they?"

She answers politely, but worriedly. "As concerned as you are, as we all are, for their welfare, Optimus. They will recover. However I could not do anything for Hot Rod. He will be fine, but due to the fact he was exposed to a pure dose of a Bioroid's Nano-blood virus, it cannot be removed. The virus has a survival mechanism that morphs itself into the subjects' material mass. It is a survival mechanism when a Bioroid is exposed to injury and the blood comes into contact with anything else after the injury." She stopped a moment to look in on the medilab below through the view screen. "Hot Rod will be back online in a quartec or perhaps before, and there is a slight chance that the link between him and his Targetmaster may be somewhat diminished now. Ella on the other hand..."

Sound Track nodded her head at Sunstar and the medic handed over a small bright, silver, glowing ball attached to a necklace. She held it up for the others to see.

_'That looks like a smaller version of the foundry key.'_ Comments Optimus to himself.

Sound Track wasn't about to let on to anyone that she was capable of hearing their thoughts, and caught on very quickly to what Optimus was referring to.

"We need ta go lookin' for somethin' here on Cybertron before we can get her awake again." Says Sound Track. "Her bein' offline an' all, well after she's injured, she shuts down and it's hard ta start her up again."

Several of the others are confused and Sunstar continues. "Ella is not an ordinary human but a rather aged alien mechanoid. The laser blast to her chest caught her off guard and when she helped out Hot Rod with some power to his system, it drained her personal shield and left her vulnerable to attack. It hit her in a sensitive spot and has disrupted her internal systems and her body has shut down to fix the repairs."

"An' we have ta go lookin' for somethin' here ta fix it." Adds Sound Track. She hands Ella's necklace over to Optimus to examine.

As soon as the device changed hands, it started to glow. The others all noticed this, and took a step back from Optimus. The glow extended to the point where certain circuits on his person glow until it reaches his optics, allowing him to see the location they needed to go to.

Once his optics stopped glowing he promptly hands back the necklace to Sound Track and notes to the others. "We have to get this device and Ella to the chamber that houses Vector Sigma; it will know what to do."

Magnus looked at Optimus. "But how did you know that?"

"To be honest, Magnus, I don't know, but when I touched the device, it was like I'd received a full recharge of energy. Something stirred within the Matrix in my chest upon contact with the small jewel, and it somehow allowed me to see Vector Sigma as one who could help Ella."

Sound Track picked her time to intervene. "Then ah suppose ya'll had better put a team together tah help us go searchin' for this Vector Sigma?"

Outside on the landing pad, Jazz had gotten weird looks from Nightfall and Crashcourse, who had both been left on guard duty outside.

Several Autobots had not initially agreed to allow Nightfall to do anything. They had all readily recognised him as a Decepticon foe from their past and no-one wanted him running around loose. It had taken some discussion between Optimus, Freefall and the rest to come to some kind of agreement about it. They hadn't bothered about the why's and wherefore's of his reappearance at the time due to their having to deal with a medical emergency, and so he was left outside and not permitted into Iacon.

Jazz passed the two outside and told them he'd left something inside the ship, and upon entering, noticed Landslide offline and resting by the main control panels, or at least he thought she was. He quietly moved around to where Henry and Peter's battle vehicles had been parked, and looked them over with his scanners for anything he might recognize. One looked like a red American Chevrolet Silverado utility truck and the other a black, silver and white Nissan Skyline Police patrol car. He looked inside both vehicles and saw a name plate labelled 'Prowl' on the Nissan's dash.

Peter had come in close behind him and Jazz had not yet seen him due to his attention being elsewhere

"I suppose you will be wanting an explanation?" Peter said quietly so as not to disturb Landslide.

Jazz turned suddenly and knocked something from the wall, making a loud racket which made Landslide look in their direction. "Geez Pete, ya trying ta scare me ta death or somethin'?"

"What you two doing? You make enough noise to wake dead, go finish noisemaking outside!" she yelled at them with her Chinese accented Earth English. They moved outside and walked back to the rec room, talking.

"Ya know, the way she talks, kinda reminds me of Grimlock." said Jazz jokingly.

Peter replied, "Doesn't it just! That's just her vocaliser, she spends way too long in her Earthen Chinese Biomode, and it just changed that way to match!" They both had a little laugh together, with Peter happy that he didn't have to hide from his old friend anymore. Glad that Jazz and his intuition had won out on them. He didn't have to explain any broken orders to Ella when she awoke again.

"So, uh, it really is you in there, is it Prowl?" asked Jazz, pleasantly surprised that his hunch was right.

"Yes Jazz, it is, but you can not tell anyone. At least not yet. We uh…we all had orders to stay under the radar while we were around you mech's but well, it didn't discount for you and your investigational skills and intelligence!" He stopped for a moment to see Jazz's smirk. "You can't tell anyone, NOT even Optimus, at least not yet, not about the rest of us."

"We? So there are more of you?" he asked. "How many more?"

Peter turned to him. "Yes there is more, but I can't tell you who else and how many right now. You will most likely figure it out on your own, so just keep it all to yourself."

"To be honest I'm curious how you got brought back?" asks Jazz.

"It's a long story I can tell you later. And honestly I still do not know how Ella managed to get us back; as much as I've been thinking about it, I just can't wrap my head around it. It just simply defies logic as far as I'm concerned."

Jazz replied happily, "Just chill out, ol' buddy, and enjoy the ride. Now that I know you're here, we can talk all about it and get reacquainted again eh? I'm sure there's a reason for it all!"

With that, they both continued their conversation and walked on to the rec room and rejoined the others without letting onto a single soul about their conversation or Peter's true identity.

On a barren outcrop on the planet Charr, Galvatron oversaw the construction of his new warship and battle fortress. The Dominion had agreed to give him these things in return for his help to overthrow the Alliance.

They, however, had no experience in dealing with Galvatron, and so did not expect him to renege on his end of the bargain. They expected it, but would wait till he showed signs of a betrayal before they would do anything, preferring to get as much out of him and his Decepticons as they could before they became useless to the Dominion.

When he had seen the military strength and technology the Dominion possessed, Galvetron decided then and there to let them carry the burden of all the work and half heartedly follow behind in reserve, as he waited for his chance to take over and claim the Dominion for himself, and use them as a means to take over the universe for himself.

However, he had begun to suspect that this female mechanoid, Decellion, was after the very same thing he was. But she seemed more intent not only on exacting vengeance upon the Alliance, but also finding and terminating another female mechanoid by the name of Ariellion Duragon.

But as it was, he had yet to determine her true agenda, and so he continued to keep her close, watching her and using her as best he could, to achieve his own agenda.

While Hot Rod was offline, he had the opportunity to allow his mind to wander. Or so he thought.

The place his mind had come to was unfamiliar to him. It did remind him of an information network hub. Ones that he had seen in the past. But he had never been inside one.

"That isn't where you are right now." Said a familiar voice behind him.

He turned to find a male humanoid mech standing behind him in this cyberspace.

"This is somewhere we Bioroid's go to in between our life internments." He commented. Then it finally hit Hot Rod why this person's voice was familiar. It was his.

"Precisely." He said, "Name's Rodine by the way." The humanoid male waved his hand behind him and a chair appeared. He sat in it and leaned back to relax. "I won't keep you long. As for why you and I have the same voice, well that's because you and I share a common bond. I can't explain that right now, but I'll be here any time you need to ask me something. And as for what's going on out there, I need you to do something for me."

Hot Rod was smirking at this individual's forthright manner, "Like what?" he dared.

Rodine smiled at him, "Look after Ella for me. You won't understand it right now but you will later." Rodine looks away for a moment then continues, "I gotta go for now kid, be seein' you around eh?"

He disappears and leaves Hot Rod with too many questions, "Hey wait?" he calls.

A disembodied voice calls back to him, "Oh and don't tell anyone about me, it's our secret ok!"

He doesn't have to wait long before his own body starts to disappear and he returns to an online function.

It had been at least a quartec now since Sunstar had finished her analysis on Hot Rod. He was online again in the medilab, but was very groggy and low on energon. Sunstar happily let him drink some refreshments to help him awaken.

Some of the other Autobots gathered around him. "Well, at least he won't be able to brag about how he saved the day!" said Cliffjumper jokingly. Kup, who was standing next to Cliffjumper's right at the end of Hot Rod's medi-bench, hit Cliffjumper in the arm.

Cliffjumper grabbed his sore arm and said to Kup, "Well, he's got a habit of biting off more than he can chew, and now someone, something's bitten him back... so to speak."

Vanguard giggled slightly at this comment, gently handing over a container of gold energon to Hot Rod. "Here, take this, it'll make you feel much better than normal energon would, I keep a flagon of this stuff handy for emergencies."

Arcee helped Blurr with getting Hot Rod sitting up on the bench he was on. Hot Rod took the flagon from Vanguard and consumed all its contents. The room was quiet for a moment, until his circuits started to glow from the energon now in his system.

"Whoa!" he commented, getting to his feet suddenly without help. "What the blazes was that? It's certainly got a real kick to it!"

Vanguard smiled and replied, "It's a special blend of hyper-energon Ella makes, it's also laced with micro-nanytes to help with instant healing and regeneration for your internal mechanisms, we use it mainly for medical purposes, and it doesn't help to have it more than once most of the time, 'cause it can do things to your braincase." She tapped her head case.

"Ah, so dat be explainin' why Burnout be drinkin' it so much, she be havin' no brains lef' ta damage!" Joyride says sarcastically, who then got a death stare from Burnout, while Sunstreaker and Sideswipe had a good laugh out of it too.

It was then that Optimus Prime walked down the stairs to the medilab, with Smokescreen and Powerglide behind him, and joined the others with Hot Rod.

Sunstar asked, "Have you decided who shall go and help Ella by finding Vector Sigma, Optimus Prime?"

"I thought it might be best if you chose, since this jewel is your item to research; my soldiers will accompany you, but will keep out of your way."

"Thank you Optimus, we would only need a small group, considering you were kind enough to show us the chamber that Shockwave had found years ago, this entrance to Vector Sigma."

"It's the least we can do for you and your friends, Sunstar, and since you also helped Perceptor repair everyone after that fight on Papillon," answered Optimus.

Sound Track then intervened by asking Jazz, Sunstreaker, Vanguard, Kup and Sunstar to come along, and for the rest to stay put. She objected to Hot Rod also wanting to join them, as he was adamantly told to stay put in the medical bay by Perceptor.

On Earth, in another US government military facility, some members of a group known as the E.D.C. had been asked to talk with the US President, along with some military scientists from a secret 'Project Messiah' organization.

One member, Marissa Fairborn, carried on in the footsteps of her grandfather, Nathaniel, as one of the prime agents of this organization. Both she, a couple of her agents, and some government scientists were discussing a new project involving the inclusion of Transformer technology to be used by the E.D.C.

The US government military had been working on the designs for this project for over 30 years now, and had had no success with it. They had plenty of other things they had been able to create using Cybertronian technology for commercial use though, but what they wanted was firepower they could use to protect themselves against Decepticons or another alien invasion.

The Autobots had been reluctant to give them the technology directly, due to knowing what they would use it for, and so in the best interests of humanity they decided they could not give it to one country alone, and not share it with others. But one other could.

A rich technologist called Adam Drake could, and did. He gave the US military the rights to the technology of his brainchild, 'Project Messiah'. He fashioned a transforming combat suit, loosely based upon a Transformer mainframe, which could be completely controlled by a human-sized pilot. This mechanoid suit could convert from any kind of vehicle, land, sea, or air based. And the ones his mother designed could also transform into a humanoid form. The battle mechanoids could allow the pilot to shift battle modes and fight either alongside, or against, other Transformers, and/or other hostiles.

Adam was already present with the US president, when the others all walked into the Oval office to discuss the project. Having been briefed on 'Project Messiah' several days ago, the E.D.C had all but landed themselves at Adam's feet to test the new prototypes at the military base in Area 51, Nevada, as well as at the base in Port Angeles, Washington State. Although the ones at the latter base were Adam's secret.

The E.D.C had already sent along some of their agents to meet with him and the US president about the project today.


	9. Chapter 9 Origin Of The Species

In The Beginning

Origin Of The Species

In the underground of Cybertron, the group had been walking for several vorns before Sound Track had given them a rest.

"Oh my achin' peds!" says Kup as he finds a spot to sit down.

"How much further do we have to go? I could really think of better things to do than this." Complains Sunstreaker.

Vanguard was off to the side resting with the others. She had a holovid map of the path that led down to Vector Sigma's chamber. She knew Sound Track had gotten a resonation of the map loaded into her server, but Vanguard was now wondering why she was moving off in a different direction.

She pointed it out to Sunstar, but before anyone could stop Sound Track, she had vaulted off the edge of a deep crevice and onto another platform below.

"Ahoy down there Sonny, whatcha doin'?" calls Vanguard, who had walked up to the edge to see where her comrade had gone.

"Short cut!" was the reply.

Vanguard raises a brow and then looks to Sunstar, "Should we?"

Sunstar tilts her head and doesn't answer; she then shrugs her shoulder plates slightly and follows Sound Track off the edge and down to the hidden platform.

"Would anyone else care to join us?" calls Sunstar from below.

Vanguard looks around at the others, "You lot comin'?" she asks.

Sunstreaker looks around at Jazz and Kup and asks curiously, "How does she even know where she's going?"

Jazz answers, "Must be usin' that amulet thing they've got?"

Vanguard answers, "Actually Sound Tack is as blind as a bat, physiologically speaking." She vaults down to the ledge and leaves the Autobots behind with a few confused looks on their faceplates.

Later, in the room of the vaunted Vector Sigma, deep underground Cybertron. The mechs along for the excursion had all gathered inside the room. Vanguard was helping Sunstar with some program algorithms on one of the screens, and Sound Track was watching over their work from a distance. They were attempting to enter the room they wanted to get into.

Jazz walked up to Sound Track and asked, "Ya know, it's kinda freaky how some of you ladies seem to have the same brand on your armour platin' as the symbol on the door over there, would ya care to explain that?"

Sound Track replied without shifting her gaze. "It's a common Deltronian symbol ya'll." She paused for a moment, and then turned in Jazz's direction. "But from what ah could tell ya'll raght now is, that about 15 million stellar cycles ago, our Deltronian ancestors came from Cybertron."

"I didn't know that?" said Sunstreaker. "But what about the different factions; the war between the Autobots and Decepticons started after that, how'd you get Autobots and Decepticons in the Delta system? I've seen some belonging to different factions around your base and in your personnel files."

"Different mechs drifting in from time to time, like me for example!" said Vanguard jokingly. "Plus, we've even had some AWOL Decep' soldiers who thought to leave the Decepticon cause and live on as a minority in the Delta system. We got stuck with ol' 'Screamer coz he decided to drop into our neighbourhood, but hey that's a story for another time."

Just as Vanguard had finished talking, Sunstar had finished what she was doing on the computer screen. "You really should have brought Joyride with us. Hacking and bypassing security systems is not my forte." Commented Sunstar, "That and I find the activity a deplorable one."

"But a necessary one in this case kid!" replies Vanguard as the doors to the inner chamber open. Sound Track looks at Sunstar and nods to agree with Vanguard.

Sunstar decides to continue talking to Sunstreaker about his questions. "And not to mention that the inherent characteristics of both species were already present in your Cybertronian cybernetic makeup," adds Sunstar, "If Megatron had not created the Decepticons, then someone else would have; different factions and names I suppose, but still the same thing, good versus evil, to a degree. One side versus the other." Sound Track is the first to go into the room and the others follow her in.

"Whaht Sunstar is tryin' tah say, is that it was all programmed intah us from the beginnin' of our creation, here on Cybertron nearly 30 million stellar cycles ago." continued Sound Track.

"Say what!?" said Sunstreaker. "30 million stellar cycles, you have got to be out of your mind! We were made by the Quints only 20-25 million cycles ago, how can our species be older than that?"

Kup had kept quiet by the side all this time, but he knew what Sound Track was going on about. Having met and befriended Ella in one of her mecha guises on Cybertron right before the war had broken out, she had confided in him this information, but only if he had sworn to secrecy for it. He had done his best over the years to not say a word to anyone, not even Optimus, about anything Ella had told him, about the true history of Cybertron. But now, he saw his chance to rectify that.

"That's what they wanted us to believe young mech, but it couldn't be further from the truth. Sound Track is right." Answered Kup. "The Quints didn't make us, it was just what they wanted us to believe to keep us enslaved; they just mass produced us according to information they found here on this planet in the computers, information they interpreted from the systems, when they found it abandoned 25 million cycles ago."

"Abandoned?" questions Jazz. He was a tad astonished to discover this information, but even more astounded that it had come from an old mech like Kup. Though he wasn't terribly surprised, Kup may well know things about the past he may never reveal to anyone, _'Who knew what else he had buried in his memory banks,' _thought Jazz. "So, how long have you known?" he asks.

"Too long..." was his answer. The others, also curious as to Kup's part in knowing the information, listened intently to him. "...since before the war," he finished guiltily, without looking at the others. He seemed lost in thought. He looked up at Sound Track. Even though she couldn't see him with her non functional optics, she nodded to him as if to say it was alright to speak. "It was when that I first met Ella, but she was in a different form then. She's a shape shifter of sorts, and was undercover as one of us. We stayed good friends through the start of the war while she was hidden. She was a great help with information too."

"I don't remember you ever hanging around with a femme during the war? Are you sure your worn out memory circuits aren't just playing tricks on you?" queries Sunstreaker snidely.

Kup momentarily wants to put Sunstreaker in his place for his disrespectful comment, but lets it go. "She can take any form lad and she knows more about Cybertron than even Alpha Trion does, being that she's been around just as long or even longer I believe."

"Do you know that that information, and whatever else you knew about Ella and Cybertron's past, could've helped us way back when against the Decep's during the war!?" commented Sunstreaker angrily.

"Lay off a bit 'Streaker." Intervenes Jazz.

"I was sworn to secrecy till now…" answered Kup, but he was cut off by Jazz.

"He would've had his reasons, right, Kup?" Jazz said looking at an angry Sunstreaker, as Kup nodded in agreement.

Meanwhile, Sunstar, who had been unperturbed by the whole conversation that was going on behind her, noticed the amulet belonging to Ella in her hand, was beginning to glow. "I believe we have found what we were looking for." She stated plainly as the amulet, still attached to the chain in her hand, was floating in the air and led her to a console in the centre of the room.

"Found what?" said Sunstreaker.

"This." As she says it the amulet detaches itself from the housings on the chain and levitates in the air above what looked like a keyhole on the console in front of them. It turns around slightly as if to align itself and then it drops into the panel and turns. The computer console reacts to the presence of the key and a holographic display on another console sparks to life as well as everything else in the room. The information being shown around the room was showing them pages of text, designs and information that contradicts what they had been led to believe was the history of Cybertron up until now. All being run by the power in the amulet and obviously interacting with Vector Sigma's ancient computer systems.

"Well now this certainly makes some sense. Look at all of this!" Exclaims Jazz, not perturbed by the information. Kup wasn't worried in the slightest either.

But Sunstreaker had a hard time dealing with it. "What is all of this?" he said somewhat disgusted.

Vanguard answered, "History. Your history. This device, the key, is an external memory unit for Ella as far as I know. What she knows, it knows. It is also a key to Vector Sigma, one of a few not unlike the one that Alpha Trion has. They say that knowledge is power, and this is one powerful device. And it is too well protected to be used as easily as the key that Alpha Trion protects, this key takes measures to protect itself and makes sure only it is only used beneficially. In the time I've known Ella, well there haven't been many times that it could be removed from her, but only certain mech's can either handle this amulet or even remove it from Ella's person. Kind of like chosen ones!" she snickers slightly at her last remark.

What then came up on the screen surprised them. Sound Track knew what was going on, but the others in her team didn't and nor did the Autobots, not even Kup knew what he was seeing. The key device had accessed files on the holographic display that showed the blueprints for a body shell that was pre-Cybertronian, almost human in form, according to the date stamp on the holographic display in front of them. And it predated any robotic creation they knew of in Cybertronian history to date, older than 30 million years. But it showed a progressive evolution of sorts to what the Transformers were today. And then finally shifted over to a medical program that the Roughnecks team members knew, was the amulet doing its work on Ella.

Sunstreaker was going over all the information and then put two and two together, "Wait! According to all this, Ella has been on Cybertron since before the Quintessons, since before we even existed. Are you telling me she had something to do with creating us?" he questions.

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. Ah'd say it was Primus. Ella was probably someone else then and actin' under orders from on high. She's lahke that at times. Very spiritual and devoted to the service of the light." answers Sound Track, "Maybe she's one'o your vaunted Twelve ya'll?" The group continued to discuss information with Sound Track, and she told them all she could about Ella and what she knew about her origins.

Out in the open around Iacon, on the landing pad area, Bumblebee, Smokescreen, and Joyride were sitting back relaxing, while below them, Sideswipe and Burnout participated in a one on one demolition derby. And Landslide had elected to go on watch duty.

Bumblebee asked, "Burnout's at it again! Just how much fuel can she store in her tanks?"

Landslide was standing on a high point somewhere close by, but was using her invisibility. She was closely observing all she could from her point of view, taking in the scenery of a planet she'd never been to before, analysing every vantage point she could see.

She heard Bumblebee's question as he wasn't too far from her.

"She have large tank for much energy storage."

"Huh?" he queries when a voice came out of nowhere.

She startled Bumblebee when she talked while still shielded by her invisibility, so she de-cloaked and repeated what she said, "She have many tank, good for lot of fuel." she replied, and immediately went back to scanning the scenery around her.

Bumblebee looked at Smokescreen; he shrugged his shoulders, and then turned his gaze back to the area below them.

Sideswipe and Burnout were lined up at opposite ends of the open area, and were about to play 'chicken run'. They both floored the accelerators of their vehicle modes, and drove straight towards each other.

Sideswipe had to admit to himself that he was rather keen on all the fun Burnout was sharing around, it kept him from getting bored while his brother was otherwise occupied underground. Burnout kind of filled the gap of his twin brother's absence very well right now.

He'd never known a femme who could match him on his level, only his brother had been able to do that. Fight crazy as she was, she didn't let up very easily, and he was determined to keep up with the pace, making him fall behind sometimes. While driving, at the last second, he had to pull away from the run; he knew she would tear right through him, as he had seen what her armour could do. He felt very disappointed in himself for having had to back down from a femme, especially with his comrades watching.

Smokescreen yells at Sideswipe from the sidelines, "Hmm, I was kind of counting on you to win that one?"

Sideswipe looked up in his direction after he had transformed and gave him a disappointed shrug, "Sorry!" He saw both Smokescreen and Bumblebee exchanging credits between themselves, Smokescreen not willingly wanting to give them up.

"Well Sideswipe, ye'll jus' have tae try harder nex' time, eh?" Burnout commented as she transformed back to her robot mode and slapped him on the back playfully knocking him about 10 metres away from where he had just been standing.

Bumblebee and Smokescreen were now laughing their peds off.

"There is just no beating you, is there?" he asked laughingly, and she nodded helping him up onto his peds. "Well, I guess we'll just have to change that, are you up for another challenge?" He offered her his hand.

"Deal!" she said, shaking, and crushing, his hand while she was at it, admiring his ardour.

Inside Vector Sigma's chamber, Sound Track had just finished telling them all that she knew. She had been there for at least a mega cycle.

Kup had heard most of it before when he knew Ella as an undercover mechanoid on Cybertron from his past. Sunstreaker didn't seem terribly interested but did listen to everything Sound Track said, as did Jazz. Vanguard and Sunstar already knew the whole story and so occupied themselves with something else.

The hologram of information started to fade out. Sunstar pipes up and says, "I do believe that whatever the amulet was doing is almost done." Just as she said it, the device unlocked itself from the console and floated back and connected to the chain that was still entangled in Sunstar's digits.

Vanguard looks to Sound Track, "Do you think it worked?"

"What worked?" asked Sunstreaker, but he was ignored.

Sound Track replies to Vanguard, "Ah don' know but we'll see ya'll when we return ta Iacon with tha' Amulet."

"What's going on?" asks Sunstreaker in an attempt to be noticed.

"Well uh…" says Vanguard.

Sunstar cuts in and continues, "Ella had always told us that if she ever got into any trouble around a planet like Cybertron, a planet with a sentient core like Vector Sigma, that we could use her amulet to connect to the central processor of this planet. And through that to her. I was unsure if this planet had such a core as I am not well versed in Cybertronian history…"

Sound Track continued, "...But when Prahme mentioned Sigma, that's how we knew it was."

"So is that it then? Do we go back now?" Asks Sunstreaker rather bored at being in one place for so long.

Vanguard giggles slightly, "Keep your struts on 'Streaker, we're goin'."

Everyone got up and left. Sound Track stayed behind a moment to look for something with her sonic resonators.

Jazz notices her lacking behind and watches silently as she looks around the room before turning and joining the rest of them. "Forget somethin' lovely lady?"

Sound Track looks in his direction, _'or someone…'_ she thinks, and then answers him flatly, walking right past him, "No." She wasn't about to tell him she sensed someone else in or near that room that wasn't with their group. She would have to tell Ella when she got back to the medical ward at Iacon.

After she and the others had left and the chamber was once again sealed, a ghostly figure of Alpha Trion appears and accesses the console that the amulet key had been on. "Now let's see what you've been doing since I saw you last old friend!" He then proceeds to view memory engrams of Ella's that the amulet had uploaded into Vector Sigma's system.

In the medic ward, Perceptor had needed to contact Optimus and report Ella's disappearance.

But all she had done was wonder off for a walk to think.

Hot Rod had been allowed to leave the medic ward earlier and had found Ella gazing out at the metal landscape of Cybertron from a balcony, curled up with her legs under her on a railing.

'_She looks so beautiful and serene when she's thinking like_ _that'_ said a voice in his head.

Hot Rod knew it was Rodine, and knew only he could hear him, _'I suppose she does,'_ He tilts his head; _'I suppose she would look pretty good as a femmebot if you use your imagination a bit.'_ He thinks to Rodine and rubs his chin.

He walks over to her and asks, "Mind if I join you?"

"It's not like you to ask for anything Hot Rod?" queries Ella playfully.

"No it isn't but I'm just trying to be polite! So how are you feeling?" he replies in a friendly manner.

She is unsure of how to react to the question. She had felt her amulet uploading her memory engrams into Vector Sigma and had felt something being downloaded through the amulet to help her come online again, but was still unsure. "I don't know right now." She wanted to change the subject. "The others should be back soon; shall we go and wait for them somewhere?"

He shrugs his shoulder plates, "Sure, why not. I could use a walk anyhow. Would you like lift?" He asks offering his hand.

"No I will be fine." She says as she gets down from the railing. And so off they went.

On the way back from the chamber, Jazz had fallen behind deliberately to keep pace with Sound Track who was following behind the group.

Jazz had something on his mind and was curious to know more about his old friend Prowl and how he came to be human.

"Ah know Peter asked ya'll not ta say nothin' but ya'll'r welcome ta discuss it with me Jazz seein' as how the others are outta audio shot." Comments Sound Track.

He didn't know quite how to approach the subject of asking, but he was quite unaware that she already knew what he was thinking and it caught him off guard.

"So, uh…you mind if I ask about Prowl, Ironhide and any other old Autobot soldiers you 'Roughnecks' might be hiding at your base?"

Sound Track raises a brow; she kept walking forward but doesn't look at Jazz. "They're not hiding' ya'll and they're not at our base. They're somewhere else close by. Not all of 'em have woken up so to speak."

Jazz had his curiosity peaked. "How many of my old comrades?"

"Not many ya'll. Just Prowl and Ironhahde as ya'll've seen. And there's others, you'll see 'em eventually."

"Really?" He was very surprised, and also happy. He would get to see some of his old friends again, but didn't know which ones and didn't know what to look out for. But what he was most curious about was how Ella did it.

"And ya'll've seen some o'tha Decep's she's brought back." He wasn't happy about that part, but he had seen that Ella was capable of keeping the ex-Decepticons on her base under her control and wondered how Optimus would take it all when he got a chance to see the Dragon Valley base for himself.

He and Sound Track talked quietly at the back of the group until they got back to Iacon and returned to the others.

The next day back on Earth, three students were enjoying the last week of their summer break. Next week they would be going back to school. This time to a senior High School and would be starting the tenth grade, and they were not looking forward to it.

They sat and talked at a bench in the food court of the local mall.

"I wonder if we'll see any new faces this year?" asks Ryan.

"You just want to get yourself a girlfriend, out of one of the new students who doesn't know you eh!" laughs Christine jokingly.

"Heh! You know me so well!" he pauses, "And why not? All the other girls have shunned me! I'm a nice guy, I deserve someone!" he starts to sob. Ryan didn't take very well to being single. Most girls shunned him because of his weight and it really hurt him to be reminded of it.

"Now look what you've done!" exclaims Laura as she hands him a hanky.

"Sorry Ryan, I didn't mean to!" Christine replies forlornly.

"It's ok I know you didn't mean to make me cry, It's just…"

Somewhere behind them, a group of other students from their last year had appeared. They had not seen them approach. "It's just that your so pathetic no one would want you!" said one female snidely with such disgust in her voice. Several of the others with them started laughing uproariously.

Laura and her friend's turned to see a group of people that had done nothing but bully them at school since they started Junior High.

"What do you lot want?" asks Laura angrily. She had to remember not to let her temper get the better of her and show off. Both her Aunt's always told her not to let that happen and not to let anyone see her use her _'abilities'_ in public if she did have to use them. So she let her anger calm down.

Ryan was still wiping his eyes and Christine wasn't even bothered by the group, "Maybe they want our autographs? They always seem to follow us around like fans do!" said Christine sarcastically.

"Maybe we want to beat the crap out of you for disgracing this mall with your filthy presence you freaks!" says one of the gruff males.

"Maybe ya'll wanna be gettin' lost!" said another voice behind them. Flashdance had followed them to the mall and had Nightshadow and Tigerstrike with her. She was there in her holographic mode and because technology had excelled to the point where some humans now had mechanoid pets, she hadn't even bothered to ask her animecha friends to use their own holo shields to make them look like normal Earth type animals.

"Whoah!" exclaimed Ryan.

"Dudes check out the exotic animecha! She must be someone rich to afford those two!" exclaims one of the bullies confused.

"But why would she be standing up for this pathetic lot?" said another from the bullies group.

Ryan and Christine lean over to Laura and whisper, "They're Flick's pet's, and they're real right? Not holograms?" Laura nods.

Felicia asks the group again, "Ya'll can scoot now ya hear?" Nightshadow and Tigerstrike start growling and advancing and the whole group of a dozen teens start to run off with the two cats not far behind their heels.

"Nice one Flick'!" says Laura clapping her hands together, "That group is best viewed from that angle."

"Running away like the cowards they are!" jokes Christine. Ryan was laughing heartily along with her.

Felicia allows her hologram to smile. She notices her two animecha companions return from their gallivanting, one with some material in its jaw and asks the kids, "What would ya'll lahke ta do now?"

The three youths smile and cook up some ideas on how to spend the rest of their afternoon.

Hot Rod and Ella had some time to talk while they were waiting for the others to return. She told him a bit about her past as he had started asking questions.

He discovered all about Rodine and who he was. Though he was sworn to keep the presence of Rodine in his mind a secret from Ella.

He felt that she was somewhat saddened by her memories of her deceased husband. "If you want we can talk about something else?"

"It's ok really. Every now and again I need someone to talk to. Being in my position is kind of lonely at the top, but thank you for listening." She couldn't explain to herself why she felt so comfortable around Hot Rod. It was like he was an old friend. It was these kinds of feelings she didn't discount, as in the past, they had turned out to be 'old friends' indeed. So she made a personal note to keep an eye on her developing friendship with Hot Rod.

"No problem! Always happy to help!" he replies cheerfully. He had some questions on his mind though. He was wondering just what this virus had done to his system as Perceptor had told him there was now no trace of it is his system as far as he could see. "So what's this virus thing anyway? Did it just go away or it's somewhere that can't be seen?"

"You're no different now than you were before really, the nano materials have now merged into your system. Only you have more power than you did before, which you'll be able to get directly from me if you want; my core happens to be an exponential generator built for the specific purpose of supporting the power for a group connected to me. You'll notice the changes when you don't feel the need to recharge as much as your comrades do."

"Straight from you eh? So what does that mean?"

"It means you get your new power channelled straight into your circuits from my power core. Some of my girls already do that but you'll learn that you won't need to do it all the time. They try to avoid that most of the time so they aren't reliant on it constantly." She replied.

"Sounds ok to me!" he comments as he leans back against the wall behind him.

It was then that the others reappeared not too far away from their underground jaunt. Hot Rod and Ella walked over and joined them on their walk back to Iacon.

When Sound Track had a chance to be alone with Ella, she told her of what she sensed down in the chamber as they were leaving, "Well I guess we'll just have to take care of that later at some stage."

Back at Iacon, Powerglide had received a distress signal on the console he was monitoring as part of his duties. "Fearless Leader, it looks like we have some mechs in distress that are in need of rescuing."

Optimus Prime turned to his direction, and then looked at the message Powerglide had displayed on his console. "Contact the others."

Powerglide quickly put a call through to Jazz.

Jazz's attention was diverted by a flashing on his comms unit, and so he switched it on. "Commander Jazz receiving, go ahead, Autobase."

Powerglide's vocalisation came through the communicator. "Jazz, you better get that tin can wheeled hide of yours back to base, we got a distress signal from a ship in the vicinity of Cybertron, that and our fearless leader wants a report on your trip! Prime's orders. Powerglide out."

Jazz looked up at the others, he smiled and said, "Ok, folks, let's groove!" They were lucky that the call had come through to them just as they were re-entering Iacon.

Ella was the last to go inside. She stood outside the entrance to the Autobots base with the security guards looking on. She was looking to the sky. She felt a familiar mind out there somewhere and it worried her to no end.

Alpha Trion smiled to himself for a moment, and then nodded to a figure near him. It was Ella's old life partner, Rodine, but in a ghost form. Alpha Trion was watching Ella from deep underground Cybertron on the viewing screens from Vector Sigma's chambers.

_'Has she gone?'_ he asked.

"For now," Alpha Trion answered. "Have you made contact with him?"

_'He took it better than I thought he would, but then he's always been that way! The accidental exposure to Ella's blood actually helped me to make contact and solidify a stronger bond with him, so let's hope this idea of your works old friend.'_ he lowered his ghost-like head, and then turned to Alpha Trion.

"Time will only tell," Alpha Trion paused for a moment. "Won't it young guardian?"

Rodine thought back to the day he made an agreement to Primus of Cybertron, 30 million stellar cycles ago, to become the new guardian of this old planet. He smiled and said, 'I just hope we can get our mission done in time."

"Perhaps!" answers the patient old Autobot, and they both continue to watch the happenings up above from their viewing screens down below the surface.

Dinobot Island

For the last few years it had been rather quiet with the Decepticons and Grimlock and his crew had gotten fed up and had left everyone for the solitude of their own island, somewhere in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. Dinobot Island, as it was appropriately dubbed, was protected by a strange temporal energy field of sorts.

The Dinobots had all participated in training manoeuvres earlier that day, and now rested.

"Me Slag, so bored, no Decepticons to fight," said a mechanoid Triceratops, as another mechanoid dinosaur, a Pteranodon, flew overhead and landed close by.

Swoop replied to Slag's comment. "Raark! Slag right, we need real fights, not practice ones, we need to go back for real fights, back to Autobots."

Grimlock was sitting on a rock nearby in his robot mode, facing away from the others, thinking about what his team members had said. He got up and, whacking one fist onto the other, declared, "Ok, me Grimlock, say we go back and whip Decepti-butt... that is, if there any Decepti-butt left to whip."

This comment had woken up a Brontosaurus, and a Stegosaurus, from their sun nap close by. Both were trying to recharge using the sun's energy.

Grimlock knew that Jetfire would be flying by the island from Autobot City sometime soon. The same time he did every week to drop off supplies for them. _'Now we just have to wait for Jetfire to take us back to Autobot base.' _He thought. After all these years he was still frustrated at his damaged vocal processors, but it still made him sound normal instead of some hyper intelligent mech. And that he could live with.


	10. Chapter 10 Back To School

In The Beginning

Back To School

The young kids had taken every opportunity to enjoy their last week without having those bullies ruin it for them. They were secretly hoping that none of them would be coming up to the senior grade at their school, but no such luck.

Not only was their entire group here but they also had made one or two new friends out of those who had transferred during the first week of class. But then again Laura and her friends had made a few new friends of their own out of some new comers and noticed that they had some new teachers too.

A week ago, several individuals had been approached by another. This someone was Adam Drake. He had contacted a few old friends that his mother used to work with, that he wanted to involve with his private project outside of the military project he was already involved in.

He had gone over the particulars of the project with the US Government and they had decided to conduct the research and development for it at their underground mountain base somewhere south of Port Angeles. This particular base was already conducting scientific and technological research, so it made no difference to them whether he was to be involved in this new project or not. But Adam had a contingency plan of his own.

The individuals Adam had attempted to contact were all involved in some way or another in Ella's mecha projects in the past. And had been ever since an incident between some mechanoids and the US military back in the 40s.

The first one he had contacted was Aaron Murphy. A former employee of the Drake Corporation. As far as Adam knew, he had once been a security guard transporting valuables around for his mother till an accident where a robbery had gone wrong, had put him near dead in the hospital.

Ella had known his parents. They had not been able to cover Aaron's medical expenses and had agreed to let Ella pay for it. Aaron had discovered her charity and asked his parents to allow a cybernetic upgrade, seeing as how Ella was picking up the tab.

Adam had his own guards surrounding him as he entered the bar that Aaron now worked in as head of security.

"We're not open." Someone called out from the floor below.

"I didn't come here for a drink." Replies Adam.

Aaron took a moment to recognize the voice and smiled. "Didn't think I'd ever be seein' you again?" Aaron puts down the checklists he had in his hands on a desk close by and wanders over to a corner to sit down and indicates for Adam to come downstairs and join him. "So who needs saving this time?"

"No hero business this time Mr. Murphy." He hands Aaron a card. "We've moved past the cyborgs as secret heroes and have now moved into a battle mecha pilot's stage."

Aaron presses his thumb to a plate on the card and a holographic image erupts to life. It shows a transformer of some kind, moving between an armoured truck mode and a robot mode. "Who's this?" he asks.

"If you agree to help out, then he is you new partner, Armstrong." Adam stated.

"Hmm…" Aaron rubs his chin. "Well…I do have some commitments here but I'll help when I can ok. Just call me if you need me. Your mother wouldn't be too happy if I abandoned those commitments after she went to all the trouble of getting me the job of head of security here after I got out of hospital ya know?"

"Especially since it seems to be the only night club in town that can cater for both humans and those transformers mother has on her base." he comments on the sheer size of this place. "It's only our type that come here and a select few who know about us. After all we all need somewhere to come and let our hair down and take our head cases off to relax don't we!" laughs Adam. "But I will take care of everything ok."

"Yeah sure!" says Aaron.

"Heh?" Adam cocks a brow. "You won't be disappointed."

"I know I won't! Knowing you and your family, it has been one grand adventure after another!" he leans across the table, "Say, are the others in? I mean Cass', Heather and 'Knight and the rest of our old group?"

Adam smiles. "I will be contacting them. The reason I am putting your group back together is because of the government and the new mech project. I won't let them have complete control of it and they don't like it. Seeing as how I'm providing the entire funding for it, I want to make sure they don't go off the deep end and go overboard and try to take the project from me. I know they will, they always do. This is just my backup plan, and mother thinks it is necessary also."

"Will the Autobots be told about this project?" asks Aaron, "It'll mean you'll be on a par with them doesn't it. The military has been trying to make their own transformers for years and have even had a few mishaps from what I heard. Even going so far as to try and control them. And we both know how that went!"

Adam remembers back to 1999. There had been an accident over the sky and they had crashed back to Earth from a ship that they were using to take back to Cybertron. He had found out that a Decepticon named Shockwave had the ship shot down. But the military had also covered it up. All the humans aboard the ship had been saved and hidden but the Autobots had been left where they landed. In 2003 the US Military had found the first Autobot and gotten Spike Witwicky to reactivate Optimus Prime, the first one they had found, but not the first one someone else had found.

Another group had found others before that. But they had not been victims of that crash but had been found and reactivated by a separate group wanting to sell off the transformers as weapons of war. Adam remembered that it was Optimus Prime and his reactivated team of Autobots from the crash that had stopped it.

It was after that that they had started to build Autobot City and all the other troubles had happened. But Adam knew his mother took care of some of those problems with her team in secret. Her team of 'Roughnecks' as she called them, had been doing odd jobs on special ops missions in their Biomodes for decades. The US Military had no idea that they were transformers, only thinking they were secret military personnel of some kind. They knew about his mother's base but were not allowed in there, one of Ella's stipulations for her team's continued help with the US military was that they remain out of her business and her base.

'_They will find out soon enough I think!'_ Adam smiled and then looked at Aaron, "I'll get onto the others straight away and let you know ok."

During the week Laura and her group had made several new friends and they had been added to the entourage of the group.

Their first new friend was a transfer student from Kentucky named Alexandra Price. She was an A plus honours student. They had wondered why she had come to this school as her school record belonged to that of a tech wiz kid. She had begged her parents to put her in a normal school around normal teens her own age. She had been in and out of special schools for gifted children for years, while her father was a noted military officer in the US Armed Forces. They had come to Port Angeles as her father had received another promotion and yet again they had moved to another military base for her father to take up the new position.

Another one was Robert Steele. He had been home schooled before he came to this school. His mother thought it best to allow him to interact with other teens his age. But what they didn't know as that his mother was only half human and spent the majority of her time off world working with a space freight company that operated out of the Dragon Mountain base.

This was something he got along well with the others for, they had seen him on the base and he had taken an instant liking to Ryan, Laura and Christine and they all kept the secret of the base together.

He was also an avid musician, a guitarist, and he had a mech partner in the form of his old late 50's Combi van, called Heavy Metal, named after his favourite type of Earth music. He was an outsider like the rest of them and so fit in very well.

Krysta Rawlings had been at another special school and then transferred here to Port Angeles Senior High School. Her father had been contacted by Adam some time ago about the transfer and had agreed to it as he worked in town. Krysta also had a mech partner. It was a race bike called Racine. She and Krysta were a couple of wild ones like Krysta's older sister Heather, an employee of Ella's. She had been encouraged by all the so called cool people of the school and also the bullies group to join them but instead joined the underdogs. For 16 she was a tall and leggy buxom blonde, and rather ditsy and it irked many teens in the school that she had made friends with Laura and the rest. But Krysta had known Laura from long ago when they were just kids; her bike had been a gift to Krysta from Laura's mother long ago.

The last two of the group were Adrian Masters, a computer geek and his girlfriend Aelya Faerho. Adrian had been transferred by his parents under the insistence of Adam Drake. He knew Adrian's parents and saw his potential, wanting him to be at the school for when the first selections for the mech pilots were made by the time they all finished High School. And Aelya was another transfer student, from Ireland.

They also noticed the new teachers. Laura, Christine and Ryan noticed that their old Science teacher Professor Cassandra Mason had transferred to the high school. She had done so on Adam's request. She knew that when Adam had turned up on her doorstep previously that something had come up and that her going for yet another Masters Degree would have to wait. She knew what had to be done and agreed to whatever it was Adam needed her to do, and so she ended up here at this High School. It was not her usual cup of tea for this generally soft spoken Professor to teach teens at a common high school, as university level geniuses were more her speed, but it had to be done.

Even Krysta's older sister Heather had become a teacher. She had taken up the position of a music teacher at the school. She had only agreed to come back and help Adam, who had approached her previously, if he had provided a peaceful vocation for her. She had a rather painful history with the military which dated back to the 1940s and did not want to go back to it. Having been away from Earth for some time to get away from them and their experiments and only just coming back recently.

But no one knew her real age. Even though Krysta was 16, Heather was actually much older, and also had a daughter, who was not only older than Krysta but also out of town and worked with the same group as Robert's mother.

Aaron had declined to come to the school and instead decided to be available for external work from the Nightclub where he worked as head of security.

He was also looking forward to meeting his new mechanoid partner.

He thought back to the untimely accident as a payroll security officer in an armoured truck. He had only been on the job a few days and then that robbery happened. His senior partner had gotten shot and was unconscious when the armed robbers put a gun to his head and threatened to blow his head off if he didn't drive where they asked him to. It led to him being tied to the driver's seat of the truck by the robbers when they had gotten to their destination. They had decided to ditch the truck and also to get rid of any witnesses; they knocked out Aaron and drove the truck with him in it off the pier they were on at the time.

It was only that some dockworkers saw what happened and rescued both Aaron and his partner. His partner had died on the way to hospital but Ella had heard what had happened and stepped in to help Aaron and his parents.

Seeing as how Ella opted to foot the bill he decided to go part cyborg. Later on after that, almost 20 years ago now as he remembered, he had been allowed to get involved in Ella's secret projects and got to meet her team called the Roughnecks, a group of transformers, but not the Cybertronian ones well known to the human populace, another race of them altogether.

They all had taken their place at the school now and every now and again they saw each other in the halls and nodded to each other, and talked to each other when they could. Disappointed that their other friends hadn't joined them. They would hear from them soon enough.

Elsewhere on Earth, specifically in New York.

"Has he settled in now?" asks a businessman of his assistant.

"Yes he has Sir. Your son was not too happy about being transferred to what he coined as a common school for low class types but he accepted it and has settled into his first week." Says the assistant.

"Good." He states. "I hate to use Justin like this but I know Drake is up to something. He's been spending a lot of time lately around several people who we both know have all been associated with secret Government projects in the past and I intend to find out exactly why he's contacted these people again. Justin has been told of all of this and asked to report back to me of any developments."

"Are you hoping to be able to find out about the new project that Drake Corp is working on, I mean after all they have funded the military with billions of dollars. They must be working on something big!"

"I doubt it'll go anywhere but its better to be safe then sorry, eh Mara?"

"Yes Sir. Shall I call the others for your meeting?"

"Of course." He replies.

He watched Mara set up a sequence of encoded signals from the desktop computer in front of her. She then retracts the shutters on the windows and the room becomes dark. Soon holographic representations of others the businessman knew, both male and female, started to appear.

Michael Holmes was the member of the inner circle of a worldwide sect that was against humans becoming machines. They called themselves 'Evolution.' They were dedicated to the advancement of the human race but only through biological means and to be the masters of the technology that was around them. Many of the members of the sect were rich businessmen and women all round the world in their own rights, and only cared about their prestige and position of power.

"It is not like you to call us early Michael?" responds one hologram. It was Mara's older sister.

Michael smiles, "How is business in China, Lin?"

Same old!" she answers. She changes her tone and pushes her opinion, "Now why have you called us in early?"

Some other holograms had started to turn up. Michael had waited till all were present before he started.

"It has come to our attention that Drake Corp, our biggest threat to the advancement of our 'little' society has just spent billions of dollars on a new project with the US Military, to be undertaken in Port Angeles, in Washington State, USA."

"Why should we care what happens over in your territory?" questions another with a British accent.

"Because Lancaster if they are doing what I think they are doing, if they are successful it will affect all of us. Not just my territory. Do you understand?" answers Michael angrily

"Humph." Mumbles Lancaster. "Then please continue Director Holmes."

"Of course." He looks around the room. The ones were only numbered seven including himself, but not including his assistant. This was the inner circle of the 'Evolution Society.'

While he outlined his plan to them he thought about the past. Back in 1947 his grandfather had been a soldier at an underground military facility. He remembered when his grandfather had told him stories of alien robots he used to work with back then. His mother didn't know about the stories he used to fill his grandson's head with. Doubtful that it would have made much of a difference. After his father died when he was young because of an accident at that facility, his mother had become abhorrent of anything robotic and remotely cybernetic and hated these aliens that showed up in 1984 in Oregon with vehemence and always encouraged Michael to work towards endeavours to rid this planet of them.

In his early days of business he was involved with the military that was dedicated to dealing with the eradication of the so called Decepticons, but really he wanted to get rid of all of them. He swallowed his disgust at the time as more money was being spent by the military on the weapons division of the company he was working for as well as the rival corporation, Drake Corp.

But Drake Corp was still the biggest supporter of the military weapons and Evo Corp, which Michael had taken over as CEO 10 years ago now, had rivalled that company for more than a decade in competition of providing the US Military with vehicles and weapons.

But it was the CEO of Drake Corp that bothered him. He always thought there was something about him he didn't like. Just recently he had discovered that this Adam may not really exist. It had come to his attention through secreted information, that he may indeed be something else, and there was a cover up to support it. But if the information was wrong, and if it made a fool out of him, his reputation would be ruined, as Adam Drake was just too well liked by the public and too well protected.

He suspected that Adam wasn't the only one like this at not only Drake Corp, but on the planet. His group wanted to get rid of this infestation and allow the superiority of humanity to prevail. But first he had to identify the problem before something could be done.

He remembered some years ago when his former boss, the previous head of the weapons division at Evo Corp wanted the research of the scientists of Drake Corp so badly that they staged invasion of their facilities in their New York labs, claiming to the media that they were experimenting on children to create cyborgs and robot servants for the general public.

They of course had created this simply to take the focus off of the bio experiments they were conducting illegally, and wanted to ruin the reputation of the Drake Corp by uncovering what they were doing and exposing them, but it didn't really work.

The media and humane societies had been unable to get into the facility and it created even more of a problem, more speculations that they were indeed doing these experiments if they had something to hide. But the Military took over and stopped anyone getting into the place.

Evo Corp continually incited the media furore even more by stirring the beehive. The protestors got more and more violent as time went by at the time and tried to trash the place. He knew those Autobots had been there that day to help ward off the protestors who tried to bomb the place. Several civilian scientists had gotten hurt and the media then backed off and supported the Drake Corp facility against the actions of the protestors.

It had bothered him that his predecessor had not been able to remove Adam Drake from his office. Even his spies within the Drake Corp company found it hard to get close to Mr Drake to get information on their secret activities. And it didn't help that Adam Drake, often disappeared around Port Angeles at times. Mr Holmes was determined to find out exactly what he was up to once and for all.

If they could only buy out the company and take over all their projects, both public and private, then it could be done without any problems. But because he couldn't do it that way he had to resort to subterfuge.

The thought of that made him smirk as he listened to the others discuss his idea.

He went back to thinking about he past again. At the time he'd heard one of the top scientists, one Ashleigh Wheeler, had been killed in the bomb set by the protestors during that incident and would have killed her daughter too if the child had not been shielded by her mother. Something else he would have to follow up on, but not right now.

'_She was probably dead by now?'_ he thought. That idiot woman was trying to save her dying daughters life by using cyber technology instead of his own vaunted bio enhancements. Cyber technology disgusted him. He had known Dr Wheeler before she had married and had children and she knew about the use of biotechnology. He had been disgusted when she waved him off about it. He was interested in using new techniques as he knew her daughter was born sickly and would die soon without treatment at such a young age. But he also knew that Dr Wheeler in her infinite genius wouldn't let that happen.

He felt like humanity was diverting from its true path by embracing cybernetics, like their souls were going to go to hell when they died and all that was left of their bodies would be scrap metal.

The group agreed that they must make more of an effort to discover what Drake Corp was up to. Micheal told them that he had already placed his son on watch around people Adam Drake had been in contact with lately in the hopes one of them might slip and he could get information.

But the others decided to take a more subversive approach. They decided that Micheal needed to get undercover people into Drake Corp's research facility in Dragon Valley, outside of Port Angeles, or at least contact their insiders in the Military who could transfer to Port Angeles Military Facility.

At Dragon Valley Base.

"It's so boring here today bro' lets go get up to some mischief while the boss lady ain't here!" says a mechanoid known as Getaway.

"Okay." Says his brother meekly, knowing that if he refused his brother would do something to harm him.

"Achem!" says another mechanoid to announce herself by clearing her vocaliser.

Getaway didn't like Freefall, "Bah! Maybe another time." And he storms off to his quarters to play a video game of some kind to entertain himself. His twin brother Gateway follows not too far behind.

Two weeks ago Freefall had been asked by Ella to return to Earth after worrying that Starscream might get up to something while she was away. Nightfall had returned with her also.

There was a human present in the entry room here today, Carlita Scavanti. She was the caretaker of the two twins that had left previously and she was amused. "I just love how you can scare them into behaving without doing anything!"

Carlita of course was another mechanoid like the rest of the Roughnecks. Her Biomode was an Italian American type from New York, but her femme transformer body was a silver and jade coloured Chevrolet Corvette named Timewarp.

Freefall did not reply. She had just returned from a routine security and perimeter check. And flown into the runway bay quietly and surprised the two. Nightfall had already left to go to his apartments and Freefall found the nearest console and input her report and had it transferred to the control centre and then left the flight deck. She took off the stealth unit she had used to hide her appearance from the general public who would've seen her flight, on the way out and put the device into the accessories cupboard.

She left Carlita behind to finish her mechanics work and went to the rec room to refresh herself.

This was where she found Starscream. It surprised her. Lately he had holed himself up in the Lab messing around with experiments or in the archives searching for information. Since he was not able to leave the base, Ella didn't want to take any chances leaving him alone for long periods of time in case he did get out. She knew how crafty he could be. He would find a way eventually. And she would be right there to take care of it.

Freefall had to admit to herself that he was something to look at. It was so unlike her. She didn't usually let her emotions get the better of her at all.

She was the oldest mech on this base having been around for millions of Earth years, changing her form many times over the eons to adapt and survive.

As she stared at him she saw a ruthless beauty about him, it made her smirk somewhat in her head, but always looked away before he saw her staring. She had watched him intently over the past two weeks and put as much information as she could in reports for Ella to read when she returned to the base.

She was pretty much alone with him on the base but made no untoward moves, instead just watching. Most of her team were out on missions using their Biomodes all over the US. She imagined having him at her mercy, and teasing him for not being as powerful or as free as she was. It was a selfish thought she let pass very quickly.

She was a scientist herself and quite often wondered what exactly it was that Starscream had been researching, often finding him in weird locations all over the base. He had also been accessing strange files, mostly ones to do with Ella's personal history, but still didn't know what he was up to. She noticed he was surely but slowly accumulating all sorts of items from all over the base for some secret project he was doing in his private apartments.

She decided she had to manoeuvre him into revealing what that project was. He had not noticed her watching him as yet.

On one occasion she had been tired and negligent in taking her datapad with her. And upon returning to the rec room where she had left it, found Starscream reading her reports. She cursed herself for forgetting to collect it and not putting the security password on it to prevent others from reading it. This was where their first real confrontation began.

"You should mind your own business you old mech!" yells Starscream as he confronts her about the information on the datapad.

"Vhy vould I vant to do thet now comrade Starscream? I hev been assigned to vatch you by the commander of thes base." She replies with her Earthen Russian accent.

He scowls at her, annoyed, and somehow knew she wasn't the type to back down from anyone lest of all him. He was going to say something and opened his mouthpiece to do so, but then shut it and walked out. He turns to leave the rec room with the datapad in hand, intent to see just how much more Freefall had entered into the device about him.

Freefall is fast enough to get in front and stop him before he exits the room. She puts an arm up in front of him and against a side wall to prevent him from walking forward. "I believe you heve something thet belongs to me." She states clearly and quietly. They stare at each other for a moment, both knowing it could escalate into a fight. "Now hend et over before I do something ebout it."

"And I should be worried because?" He was actually looking forward to a fight with this one. Freefall hadn't sparred with him yet and he had seen very little of her fighting capabilities either, at the times he had been forced to train with her team.

He'd had to tolerate behaving himself because he was as much a prisoner in his new home as he would've been a prisoner of war to the Autobots, and the former situation was preferable than the latter. At least he was looked after here. He so hated the weakness that being incarcerated in this place was doing to him, not at all like his old Decepticon self.

There were also too many femmes around the place. He wasn't terribly interested in females of his kind. He never had been. Science and Pit Fighting and the Decepticon cause were what caught his attention previously, as well as his own ambitions. But even then he was no longer a Decepticon, so all he had was his science to study here on this base for now, till he could get out of here. It reminded him of his days alongside an old friend by the name of Jetfire, who was now an Autobot.

Freefall was waiting for him to make a move. She knew his reputation for fighting. She made a grab for the datapad but he moved his hand before she could get it. All he did was smirk at her.

It made him curious as to why she wanted her datapad back so eagerly. "I'm wondering what other information you have stored on this that you don't want me to see, seeing as how you're so eager to get it back." He queried.

"Now vould you care to find out!" she jokes. She moved closer to him as she knew he was uncomfortable around females. It caught him off guard and she was able to grab her datapad from his loosened grip. "Thet should teach you to try end take vhat es not yours eh flyboy?" And she walked off programming a password into the datapad to prevent anyone from reading her device again.

He stood there furious, not only because he had allowed himself to be intimidated by a female but because he wanted to know what was on that datapad.

She chuckled to herself as she walked away, pleased with herself that she found a way to catch him off guard from now on. But she also wondered why he had such an aversion to female mechanoids. _'That I would hev to find out perhaps.'_ She thought to herself.

As Adam sat in his office he thought about his own past. Sometimes he still found it hard to believe that he was only human, flesh and blood, while his birth mother was a techno-organic machine. He knew next to nothing about his father, only the remnants of inherited memory he had gotten from him.

He had inherited genetic memory from his mother also and often went back to mull over some of her memories. He remembered the time she had sat down with him and told him all the parts that he was unable to see as Ella had deliberately shut down some parts of her memories from being duplicated even through offspring.

He had been conceived at a time when a group had been chasing Ella from the Delta System to here on Earth. They had gotten it into their heads that Ella was some kind of goddess who would give birth to their chosen one. Ella of course thought it was a load of claptrap and had left the Delta system in secret and came to Earth to get away from them. He thought it was a bit of a joke at times too.

This same group had quite often cornered him in the past. He had once thought to get captured by this group to see what they were about only to have them try and be forced onto some female they had acquired, for them both to parent some superior race they had envisioned. He had of course spurned them all and left them to their own devices. They were as much a thorn in his side in these modern days as his rival business competitors were and as were the terrorists in the world that would freely see his genetic background eradicated from the face of the planet.

He thought back to what he knew of the base that his mother now occupied.

Earth had been an old outpost during past Alliance wars and sported that base, the Dragon Valley base, which had been here for a very long time, before humans had even been Earth. But he didn't know who built it, possibly his maternal grandmother but he wasn't sure. But when Ella had found it, a lot of work was needed to get in back into working order again as it had been deserted for quite some time.

It was where he grew up as a youngling under the watching security of the base's computer system called Genesis.

It was during that time that those fanatical scientists had tracked her down. She had already given birth by then and Adam was already several years old. It was where he first developed distaste for this group.

There haunting his life was never ending, this group, this 'Majestic'. He never really cared about their manipulative nature, but he knew they would go to any length to not only protect their secrets but also to get what they wanted.

They had hounded him ever since he had taken his first wife Eva, and the continual life threatening situations it had put them both in.

It was no thanks to them that he had brought Eva's dying body to Ella at the Dragon Valley Base. They had hounded him and his wife so much that she had gotten caught in the crossfire and was fatally injured and died soon after at the time.

All his mother could do then to help without really interfering was to have Eva's mind suspended in a mechanical system, which was eventually absorbed into Genesis' systems.

He came to Dragon Valley Base to take a funeral service and say goodbye to her, even though her mind was still present on the base in the security systems of the base computer, it eventually, over time, faded into the computers databanks. He quite often came by every now and again to visit but he always thought it was unlikely that he'd see her again, if only to feel the love lost that they once had.

He had not been to the base for some time and had already moved on from the hope she'd be returned to him several thousands of yeas ago, but he still would not take another to replace her. Their natural children had long since passed on, but he preferred to think of the entirety of humanity as his children, and that's how they remembered him, as the humanitarian businessman who was a surrogate father to all the lives he touched. Soon enough they would see him as something different.


	11. Chapter 11 A Momentary Respite

In The Beginning

A Momentary Respite

It had been near a month since Optimus Prime and his Autobots had answered a distress call close to Cybertron.

The message had been encoded in Deltronian, and upon glancing at it, Ella recognised who had encoded it straight away. It was written by her biological mother, Novara Duragano.

To most she was known as a pirate and an opportunist, a former soldier of the great Alliance wars of years past, and also a former champion of the battle mech arenas with her mech companion Bonecrusher. But now an old forgotten relic of times gone by.

She didn't seem to think so. She and a team of individuals had taken it upon themselves to infiltrate a Dominion outpost in order to gather information and take what they had already stolen from the Alliance from their recent raids on the Alliances outer territories.

Ella had been keeping her team out of the trouble between the Alliance and the Dominion until recently as she knew that they would only be asked to participate when needed.

Their trip to discover the source of the distress signal had gotten some surprised faceplates on both sides. Novara and her group had not expected Ella and her group to respond to their call for help, and the Autobots had not expected to find what they did either.

After several weeks of fighting Dominion outpost soldiers in order to retrieve Novara and her team, they were brought back to Cybertron. Some for repairs, others for rest and in particular, their ship was in dire need of repairs, which was what Ella was working on. Being that the old ship was a friend of hers, an old transformer by the name of Blindside, an old explorer who could no longer transform, or so they thought.

Sound Track was not too impressed that one of Novara's group was her maternal unit, War Hammer. Those two had never seen each other on level optics and quite often argued. Out of respect of not being in her own territory, Sound Track did not talk to her mother at all and tried to avoid her for the time she was on Cybertron.

Novara's mechanoid friend Bonecrusher was also with them. At first she had not uttered a word to anyone and still hadn't as yet. All the Autobots thought she was just a mechanised war machine. But it was in the last week that Bonecrusher made her presence felt.

Ella was inside Blindside's loading bay fixing everything she could back to working order. And Bonecrusher had decided that Ella's company was safe enough to let her guard down in front of and take a nap between where Ella was working and the entrance to the shuttle bay ramp.

Blindside had been parked on the southern landing pad outside Iacon and her presence, more so the newcomers, had attracted attention, and some Autobots were outside the ship talking to Novara and War Hammer about some things, while some others were inside in the medical bay with the others.

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker had taken it upon themselves to discuss Bonecrusher right near her at the bottom of the ramp that led up to where she slept.

Sideswipe commented on her, noting she was the biggest T rex any of the Cybertronians had ever seen. Even bigger than their own soldier, Grimlock. Standing next to Bonecrusher's head, he exclaimed, "Well, ain't this dinosaur just the biggest damned thing you've ever seen? He makes Grimlock look like a midget!" The comment had gotten a few nods of agreement from some other Autobots who were close by listening and watching.

Not to mention a few laughs from the others amongst the newcomers who knew something was going to happen if Sideswipe kept up his comments. Novara knew Bonecrusher was only pretending to be asleep now when she saw her tail twitch slightly.

It was in that split second that Sideswipe had walked up the ramp towards Bonecrusher to poke fun and then looked away to his brother that Bonecrusher struck. She was too quick and agile for Sideswipe to register that he had been grabbed by the Dinosaur's long prehensile tail.

Sunstreaker was about to get his gun out when Sideswipe got his own out ready to fire at the Dinosaur. He had been unceremoniously grabbed around the midsection. Bonecrusher had not even bothered to get up yet, she just sat there laying down on her side with her head up looking at Sideswipe.

Ella had gotten up and walked towards Bonecrusher. "Ella," warned Sideswipe. "You could get hurt, we'll handle this."

Ella tossed back her head and laughed out loud. She took a step closer and put her hand on Bonecrusher and Sideswipe was let go and thrown out of the ship and down the ramp, landing outside rather uncomfortably.

Ella goes to the bottom of the ships loading ramp and says to a disoriented Sideswipe, "Now you were saying?"

Bonecrusher had since gotten up and had come down the loading ramp walking right to Sideswipe and moving her head to meet his optics. He was still on his aft section on the ground when the dinosaur had begun to walk towards him and had only just gotten onto his peds when Bonecrusher met him face to face.

If Sideswipe was a little bewildered by the dinosaur's sheer size he didn't show it. "Uh... hi!" The dinosaur just looked at Sideswipe, who then looked back, until the dinosaur spoke.

"She."

"What?" replied Sideswipe.

"I am a she, not a he." the huge mechanoid dinosaur commented with a slightly British accent. "You referred to my being a he in the loading area of that ship." She motioned to the ship with her tail.

"Uh, ok!!" he said in return. Sideswipe turned to look at his brother and shrugged. Sunstreaker however just laughed at Sideswipe and walked away, "You moron!"

Ella went back into the ship to finish the repairs on Blindside and Bonecrusher made a move towards the group outside the ship.

Novara laughed quietly to herself, "Just like you to make an impression ol' Bones, eh?"

Bonecrusher sighed. "My most humblest and gracious of apologies Sideswipe." She said in his direction, "But I do not like being approached as such, with the tone and manner you had in your vocalisers, well, it was only natural for me to respond that way."

Sideswipe replies nonchalantly "Yeah sure whatever!" he sits down close by with a few of his comrades who were enjoying some refreshments.

Ultra Magnus had in the meantime walked up and asked the group to join them at Iacon. As some of their friends and also the others that had come with the newcomers had also been repaired and were now awake.

Later in the medical bay area, after Stella and Perceptor had allowed the others in, some others had gone right into the medical area to chat. What had happened to get Novara and her group in trouble was the topic of conversation. As the group composed of curious Autobots and newly fixed visitors, it was allowed to have everyone moved up to the rec room.

"We were set upon by the Dominion Destron on the edge of the Omega sector." commented Nova.

"The Dominion?" comments Arcee, "Who or what are they?"

"Sounds like trouble to me!" grumbles Gears.

"Hey, I know you, don't I?" interrupted Springer as he had just returned from a routine security check of the area and wondered what the commotion was about. "You're that space pirate, aren't you, Novara Duragon, right? I've heard about you."

Nova just looked up at him and smiled. "Well it seems that my reputation precedes me!" she said amusingly.

"You're smaller than they say, and not as tough looking, either," replied Springer.

"Space pirate?" said Blurr, very curiously and rather quickly.

"Yeah, I'm a pirate, I admit it... and Springer?" Springer looked in her direction, puzzled at how she knew his name. "I've heard a lot about the Wreckers too, and you don't look as big and tough as they say you are, either." she commented with a smile.

This made Springer laugh, and he settled into one of the booths to enjoy some refreshments now that he was off duty.

Ella was taking a break from fixing Blindside and had wandered into the rec room to chat with the others for a bit, overhearing her conversation with Springer. "Still the same, self assured, old tin can, are we, mother?" This last word got a whole lot of mechs looking in Ella's direction as none of the Autobots had been privy to that information as yet. "Once the greatest General the Alliance army has ever seen, and a former member of the ruling council, but now nothing more than a space faring pirate!" She said this last part mockingly.

Nova looked at her daughter. "Hey, you little pint sized, wire-headed blondie, just because I've changed my occupation, of my own choice mind you, doesn't make me any less great than I once was!" She said this very angrily towards Ella, and it made some of them nervous.

Sound Track 'Humphs', and Burnout burst out laughing, when they saw the jovial look on Ella's face. The confused look on Kup's face, and on some of the other Autobots, said it all, until Sound Track explained to them that this was normal for them, without so much as cracking a smile.

War Hammer, meanwhile, was smiling at the goings on, as Joyride sat with her. She directed her inquiry at Sound Track. "And how would you and the rest of the family on Earth be faring, Desonia?"

Sound Track, having been unsuccessful right now at avoiding her mother and never hearing her maternal unit refer to her by her Biomode name before, looked in War Hammer's direction. "Just fahne, mothah, no dead bodies as yet." she said in her Texan accent.

It was around this time that Ella returned to the launch pad to finish the last bit of repairs on Blindside.

Springer was curious about the conversation that Sound Track and War Hammer were having. "Mother?" he asked War Hammer.

She turned to him. "Well, I'll forgive the fact that you guys are Cybertronian and all, but we're Deltronian; we make our mechs with pre encoded data from parental units. Joyride there, for example," she replied, motioning to the pink-coloured femme, "is one of my girls too; while she's got her paternal unit's size and manoeuvrability, she has my temper and adaptability."

Later back down in the medilab area, there were more discussions going on, again.

This time someone had brought up the subjects of Deltronian mechanoid children and Novara was just explaining the process.

"How is that even possible?" asked Arcee.

Perceptor was just about to answer her with how it would be, when Novara stopped him. She laughed slightly at the comment, and answered, "Well, I made the system quite some time ago in the Delta star system."

"It combines two programs into one; the templates we use are generally one mech and one femme; we made it for other Bioroids who had trouble with getting children, and just adapted the program for Transformers. Though young sparklings can occur naturally too, it's rare but it happens still.

"Of course, the whole mechanical system took a while to plan out and even longer for some of the old stalwarts to accept it, but..." Everyone in the room who hadn't heard the explanation before was listening intently. "We had to rely heavily on progressive Bioroid nano techs for developing protoforms. You see, all they have is the information that is encoded into their systems from their parental units, and the nano techs slow down their growth pattern until they are able to process the information, kinda like watching an organoid child grow from childhood to adulthood, if you catch my drift.

"We call the young mechs 'Droidians' and they are usually around 7 to 9 feet tall, and the older they get, the stronger they get. Their soft armour nano-plates grow and morph to accommodate with their program, until they can actually manage their first transform and then I think you'd know the rest." Everyone in the room was astounded by this information. It was not the kind of technology that was around on Cybertron, and being that at the moment Arcee was the only female Cybertronian still functional.

"And this stuff can work for anybody?" asked Sideswipe. As he spied Vanguard in her Biomode over by the beds of two other humans, whom she was attending to personally.

Ella by that time had finished repairing Blindside and left the old girl to rest outside and came to the medilab to check on the others when the group from the rec room had. She saw Sideswipe look over to where Vanguard and was wondering what he was thinking. "Do you need any questions answered there Sideswipe.

"Maybe," he said quietly. "Are those, uh…humans or Droidians or what?"

"Yes."

"Are they Vanguard's, uh Vanessa's children?"

"Not both, no. Answers Ella, "The male, Balthazar is hers. The other one is her grand daughter."

"Grand daughter?" replies Sideswipe.

"She means second generation offspring, right Ella?" comments Jazz who had been listening intently from across the room.

"Then who's the first generation?" queries Sunstreaker.

"Her mother Heather is on Earth." Replies Vanessa from the bedside of the two humans. "And she's Balthazar's older sister and my eldest." She starts walking over to the others and switches off her Biomode, returning to her Cybertronian robot mode.

"I can't help sayin' I get a kick out of that every time I see it!" comments the younger human, she's in her hospital bed and turns slightly to face Balthazar, "You think we'll end up being able to do that someday," she pauses, "I mean when we're old enough uncle Balthazar?"

Balthazar just grunts as he tries to sit upright, "I'll have no problems with a mecha transition kid, but you on the other hand will need injections and such, you're three parts human, more flesh than nano techs and mechanics you know." Balthazar had lifted up his right arm to show her the skeletal remains of his hand, "I can guarantee you, you're bones don't look like this!" Lita grimaced as she looked at the metallic skeletal bones.

She didn't seem to be perturbed either way and looks soulfully at Vanguard. Lita didn't have any tubes or attachments keeping her on the bed as she was just resting, so Vanguard picked her up and put her on her shoulder to see the others. Lita gives a little smile and a small wave at the others.

Though some of the Autobots were now looking at Lita rather curiously, especially with what had just been said.

A commotion in the other corner had gotten everyone's attention momentarily.

Three others who had been in Novara's group had been gathered. They were a maternal mech unit called Steamrail, and her two first generation mech units, Drivetrain and Railroad. She had just head butted the both of them because they had been arguing and wanted to start a fist fight in a medilab of all places. While she steps over her two mech boys and leaves Sunstar to tend to them, she goes and greets the others.

Ultra Magnus had just walked in to collect his team for another security run when he was noticed by Steamrail. 'Magnus politely puts his hand out to greet the femme he hadn't seen before "And...You would be?"

Steamrail just stands there looking him up and down and smiling, she puts one hand out on her waist and the other is rubbing her chin. Ella is giggling to herself as she looks on from the chair next to Balthazar's bed. "Steamrail's the name and hauling weapons and military hardware and such is my game!" Steamrail grabs Ultra Magnus's hand and shakes it enthusiastically, "Nice to meet you!"

Novara and some of her comrades laugh quietly to themselves.

Ella comments to Ultra Magnus as he winces from the handshake, "Don't mind her, she's ex Deltronian military. Plenty of her friends and other ex military personnel also work with us."

In the Dominion council hall, there was a discussion going on as to the dispersal of government funds for their secret project. Many of the councillors had been arguing for years over whether or not to turn their beloved 'New Omega' into a moving war planet.

But with the current costs of getting the work done, it had cost them nearly 3 times what they had originally intended for funding for completion. And for years, they had argued over its location, since building it anywhere else other than in the Omega sector, hence its name, would have alerted the Alliance to what they were doing.

And now that they had Decellion and Galvatron along with his Decepticon soldiers doing the dirty work of fighting the Alliance for them, it had left them free to carry on with the task at hand. Though they would surely not be done for at least another stellar cycle, all they had to do was get Decellion to hold off the Alliance for another year if they could.

But they also had to stop Decellion from finding out about the plans for the war planet they were building and keep her right away from it. Hoping that the female's own ambitions to take over the Alliance would at least keep her busy until the project was complete. They had started to think about what they would do if she found out about their plans, but there was nothing much they would be able to do to deter her from taking the war planet if she decided she would have it.

They already knew how powerful she was, and were already taking a great risk letting her run free like this.

At the Dragon Valley base, with Ella away, Starscream hadn't been bothered much by the others there, but he knew that it was only a matter of time before someone would discover what he was doing, and put a stop to it, so he worked as quickly as he could to achieve his plans. And he was always on the lookout for Freefall as she often followed him around the base, constantly checking up on him. And that he hated.

He also hated being a prisoner here. He had tried in vain, every conceivable idea for escape in the last month and every one of them had failed and he was downright frustrated.

Also with his new power beginning to emerge, he was pushing his utmost limits to try and get his transform circuits working again and to also find out as much information as possible about himself, Ella, the base and what these other mechs were doing here on Earth. But he didn't know that he was being watched the whole time.

Flicka had hundreds of animecha stored in her private quarters, but only ever carried around a dozen or so at the most; however she had been using several on rotating shifts to keep an eye on Starscream's activities without him knowing, on Ella's orders while she was away, letting Freefall have a break from the constant minding. At least Flashdance could help Freefall whenever the mech was busy attending to the base's day to day running and organisation too. But for now Freefall had left the base to attend to something for Ella with the Alliance council.

One of the animechs was currently in the rec room watching Starscream. The animecha knew Starscream was watching it, but Starscream didn't know it was watching him also. Frostbite the white mech wolf was unperturbed; he was just doing his job, just watching and reporting.

He was still watching when two humans he knew walked in, at least they looked like humans on the outside, but Frostbite could smell their cybernetics underneath.

Starscream was at the far end of the rec room alone in a dark corner going through vid screens of computer information he had scoured through the Dragon Valley Base computers to get. He was also in his Biomode like the two others that had just joined him.

Without looking up he rudely tells them off, "Get lost you two! I don't need your company, go bother someone else."

One of them pipes up, "Aww 'Screamer is that any way to treat old friends?"

Starscream looks up at them both. He had not seen these two before, He had to think though where he had heard this one's voice before, the human sounded like his old comrade Skywarp. And he raised a brow to query this notion.

"Wait! How 'bout I give you a hint." For a moment he is one place, "Now you see me!" Then he disappears, "And now you don't!" And then reappears somewhere elsewhere close to the table on the other side of it. He then moves to sit down again where he was to begin with.

Starscream narrows his optics at the human. There was only one mech who had that kind of power that he knew of. It was definitely him. He knew who it was now. "Skywarp? But I thought you were reformatted by Unicron into one of Galvatron's soldiers?"

"Nope. Those guys are someone else apparently. At least that's what Ella told us when we came online in these new body shells. Makes sense though. Unicron just used our bodies and we got our sparks shafted elsewhere, don't know where though. And as much as I'd love to go back to terrorising the Autobots and the humans as a Decepticon soldier, well…we got these collars on just like you 'ave and…we've got it easy with all this luxury, haven't we 'Cracker?" he slaps the back of the other human.

Thundercracker had began to enjoy being in his Biomode and was quite happy to savour all the spiritual culture and not worry about any more fighting, but then he had met up with Skywarp again. He gave Skywarp a foul look when he was slapped him on the back.

Starscream asks, "And I suppose you two have human names too to go along with those Biomodes?" He switches off the vid screens and focuses his attention on the two instead.

Skywarp points to himself, "Skylar Warren," and then points to Thundercracker, who was taking a drink of water, "Taylor Carson." He looks at Starscream, "What about you?"

"I have one apparently, but there's no need to tell you." He replies haughtily.

"Probably something embarrassing!" jokes Skywarp.

"No, it is not."

"Yeah sure whatever you say 'Screamer." Starscream grimaces angrily in response to Skywarp's remark.

"Being in these skins is disgusting enough as it is" sneers the former Decepticon Air Commander.

"You've seen the others around haven't you?" asks Taylor.

"Yes I have and I've got no particular interest in them right now." Starscream gets up from the table he was at, collects all the items he had been working on and then leaves the room.

Skylar watches him leave and then comments to Taylor, "Wonder what mechbug crawled up his tailpipe!"

On the planet of Charr, Galvatron's intentions were going ahead as planned, and soon he would have enough firepower and back up energon supplies from the Dominion, to battle his former enemies. He was rather curious at the new arrivals Decellion had brought in, and wondered how their prowess would hold up against Optimus Prime and his soldiers on Cybertron.

What Galvatron didn't know was that Decellion had already gone ahead and made her own plans. She had an idea of getting hold of certain artefacts of power and sent her agents out onto several planets, both in and around the Alliance territory to follow the leads of an old legend.

Novara hadn't gotten any more information out of Optimus Prime as to what he was going to do with the information she had passed along to him.

He had told her he would discuss it with his officers and soldiers as to the best way they could handle the information and let her know when they had some results for her.

In the meantime she went for a walk around Iacon.

She thought about the cyborg humans, Peter and Henry, and wondered why Ella had brought them along. _'Makes me wonder what exactly she sees in these humans from Earth'_, while looking at Henry and Peter, as they too were wandering around Iacon.

Bonecrusher had caught up to Novara and said "With what we went through just to get to here, I can tell you it was not easy at all."

"And you enjoyed every moment of it, didn't you?" came the response from Novara.

Bonecrusher, still in her beast mode, tilts her head and grins, "Perhaps!" For a moment she pauses then continues talking, "So you think _she_ could be after the Matrices again?"

Jazz, who had been sent to find Novara by Optimus Prime, was around the corner. He stopped to listen to what they were saying before he addressed them when he heard the mention of Matrices._ 'Maybe they mean Matrix and not Matrices like I thought I heard.'_

While Novara and Bonecrusher were continuing to talk privately, Sound Track had come up behind Jazz silently.

"Somethin' ah can help ya'll with Jazz?" asks Sound Track.

He was startled enough by her sudden appearance but took it coolly, "Ya know most mechs would need an oil change with the way you sneak up on em'!" he jokes.

"Maybe." She gestures in Novara and Bonecrushers direction, and they both go over to them to talk.

In the main council chambers of the Alliance in the Alpha system, Freefall had arrived with Nightfall in tow, to apprise the council of the situation regarding their activities. Freefall had expected to wait for some time to be admitted to see the council members. She was let in straight away, while Nightfall had been ordered to stay behind and wait for her.

This was something she did quite often for Ella, and she was used to the waiting. But she was there for another reason. She needed to know something, and seeing as how Ella was not available, she went somewhere else she knew she would get answers.

When she was called upon, Freefall entered a familiar dark room with a centre spotlight. She heard a multitude of voices in her head.

_'You have been busy, young one,_' said a crackly, old, female voice.

Freefall did not answer, as she had always been told not to, but continued to stare at the floor and remain on one knee as she was shown to do in the past. She didn't take very kindly to her submissive position, however.

_'Now, now, that is no way to think in here,'_ said another feminine voice.

_'Please, she's no threat to us anymore, otherwise we would have put her in stasis like the rest of her kind who couldn't, or wouldn't, behave.'_ thought a masculine voice.

_'You have always been too openhearted for your own good at times... she was a Destron once,' _replied another.

'_And she was , or still is one of the twelve, or have you forgotten?_' Said another. That was an episode in Freefall's past she didn't like to remember, but it did allow her an audience with the Alliance Council when others who were ranked higher than her could not get in to see them at all.

_'Enough, both of you!'_ thought a third female, clearly the leader of the voices._ 'Open your mind to me, young one, let me see what you have seen. Let me see what messages you may have brought along with you. Let me see if we can find answers to the questions you may have.'_

Freefall opened her mind, as requested by the elder Prima. She was lifted into the air into a standing position, and surrounded by an etheric glow of energy.

_'Hmm,'_ said the voice.

_'You must share with us this new information, elder.' _said a young male voice.

_'Yes, you must!'_ demanded several others at once.

_'There is no need,'_ replied the elder, _'We must send Freefall back with a message while she is still on this... this Cybertron... there will be an upcoming battle ahead of us.'_

'_Tell us what it is you see, elder?'_ said another male voice.

_'I see what we have been worrying about for a while now.'_ The elder paused, and then continued, _'Light and darkness in a flurry of fire fight.'_ She put Freefall down, and let the power glow fade from her chassis. 'Go now, young one, you have a long way to travel before you get to Cybertron.'

Some time later, Freefall arrived on Cybertron only with Nightfall for company. She told Ella of her worry and of the prediction by the council elder on Alpha Prime.

Ella then told her of the information they had received here on Cybertron as they had picked up a distress call and found Novara.

This was one person Freefall didn't like very much. And she liked her battle mecha even less. She didn't really understand why but that was just the way it was between her and them and she didn't bother to question it.

Nova had scoffed at the information when Ella had passed it along to her. Having once been a member of the council before. She had left not only because of their trying to control others and forge fate, but also because her freedom had been limited.

Ella told her soldiers they had only days to get things together, but in the meantime to drop their badges and relax for a time out on Cybertron amongst what was left of the local populace before the fighting started, but to be on their guard in case the enemy came in early or sent in spies.

Ella let Optimus take care of orders for his own soldiers, but was worried. Worried that the Cybertronian soldiers would be able to handle it against Decellion and her prime forces if they came to Cybertron. The Autobots could handle their own Cybertronian brethren, and had shown they could fight against the Destron mechanoids of the Dominion. But their mettles had yet to be tested up against Decellion herself, her loyal guard, the Necromancers, and her battle mechanoid dragon, Death Strike.

Ella had thought long and hard about it. She had no choice but to accept the fact she may have to use her larger metamorphic transformation if she had to, her own white dragon Mechanoid unit, Bright Star. She hadn't used it since the beginning of the wars here on Cybertron many eons ago, when it was till populated by her kind, Bioroids.

If she used her dragon, she knew it would affect those who were endeared to her core power system. As she herself was a powerful hub of extraneous energy. Having an exponential generator for a heart certainly was useful when she needed to dish out justice to others these days, as she was relegated to it, offer up power to be used through the actions of others.

This was something her 'Roughnecks' did with aplomb. Several of them already knew about power streaming and had an idea about how to do it and use it effectively in battle. But what they didn't know, except for Sound Track and Freefall, was that the power they channelled came from her, it only seemed to work for femme mecha though.

She was only able to open the gates to her power at particular times, but when she transformed into a larger form, it quite often opened the gates anyway. She hoped that the extra power would be enough for her soldiers during the upcoming fight.


	12. Chapter 12 Confrontation On Cybertron

In The Beginning

Confrontation On Cybertron

It had been almost a week now since information on the impending attack had been received. Galvatron and Decellion had made a bold move by coming all the way out to Cybertron to start a fight.

It was this that confused Ella, having known Decellion's M.O from previous fights under the Alliance banner against her. It was unusual to attack this way, there had to be something else she was after, something she was desperately after.

She was standing all alone on a balcony overlooking the launch bay area at Iacon. "What is it I wonder?" she murmured to herself, "Something we're not seeing that she's after that would make her take second place to Galvatron?"

She knew in the past Decellion was a tricky character. It was not like her to take a submissive role to anyone unless she intended to use Galvatron to serve her whims and save her time and resources for some other project. "That's it!" she paced back and forth on the balcony. "That's what she's doing! But what exactly? What is it she's after?" Then it occurs to her. Perhaps her old enemy has started up her hunting again for something she had no right to. Ella stops pacing around and races off to find Sound Track for a discussion.

On a ship headed for Cybertron, Decellion sits quietly in the quarters that had been provided for her at Galvatron's request.

She is thinking about her private project. She has agents out searching for artefacts. Lost relics of the time when she was still mortal. Artefacts that would help her secure a strong and lasting power base, just like it had when she had taken over the Alliance the first time.

'_I've done it once before with them, and I can do it again!'_ she thought. She was sitting back on her lounge where she was accompanied by Ravage. She had noticed the mech-cat had taken an apparent liking to her company. Though she figured the panther mechanoid was under orders from either Galvatron or Soundwave to spy on her and see what she was up to.

She smiled devilishly as this was something she would not allow these Cybertronians to become involved in. She wanted the power of these artefacts all to herself, and Cybertron was as good a place for her to do some searching of her own to find them. She knew this was a place where it had been last time.

The Bioroids may have moved it by now but she was willing to take that chance to find it and allow Galvatron to be engrossed in fighting his enemies to even bother about her whereabouts and use the fight with the Autobots to cover her tracks. The only thing that stood in her way was the Autobots protecting the planet. She would have to find a way to have her Destrons and Necromancers distract them along with the Decepticons during the fight.

At the moment she was using one of her techno-morphs. Before, just after she had escaped from her prison, she would cringe from the pain it took to keep her matter coalesced in any shape. But since she had reacquired her faithful old mechanoid, Death Strike, she had fused the old battle mechanoid into her system and made use of its physical form and manipulated it with her powers to look like anything she wanted, even a female Decepticon. This was what she was using now, quite often distracting the other Decepticons with her appearance, deliberately flaunting her form in front of the ones who noticed, this was a source of amusement to her.

At this moment, Optimus Prime was at Iacon briefing his soldiers; his own teams from here on Cybertron, and also some other Autobots Jazz had brought back with him from Earth when he went back to re-supply for the upcoming fight.

Ella's own soldiers were inside one of the nearby star ship hangars, relaxing or training nearby before the fight, as she had asked them to do of their own accord.

Galvatron and his space Armada had been spotted some distance away, so they thought that they were going to get the drop on Cybertron; however they didn't know that the Cybertronians and their guests already knew they were coming, and would be here in a solar cycle.

'_Still another 20 Earth hours,'_ Ella thought. Almost everyone was in position for the attack on Cybertron, except for Ella and her crew and some Autobots.

Ella had gone to Earth with Jazz and had brought back her personal team from Earth, the Roughnecks, as well as some others whom she knew would be of help if they were needed. She had sent back Henry, but had kept Peter here with his mechanoid vehicle. One of the strongest amongst the new faces was Peter's eldest mechanthropoid daughter named Heather, who was part human, part cyborg.

Since the death of her only love, Orion, Heather had avoided any kind of fighting because her husband had died in the service of his occupation, a military.

On Earth he had been a high ranking security officer within the ranks of the US military and he had died protecting her and her friends from the people he worked for, back in the early 1950s. That was not the only reason she shunned her responsibilities, however. After the funeral, she had taken to working exclusively off world to get away from the pain of Orion's loss and to find solitude and to get away from the US military who had been responsible for Orion's death.

She also had the added burden of her daughter, Lita, whom she was raising at the time. She had been the result of a brief tryst with Orion.

She had returned to Earth some time ago when she felt ready to face the world again and to rejoin company with her daughter, who had come back to Earth before her and her friends on the Dragon Valley base.

After the events of 1947 and the following years she wanted nothing to do with the US military, as she had been subject to experiments of all kinds. She and her companions of the time had crash landed in the US due to a malfunction in their ship. They were taken in as aliens, their technology was stripped from their ship, and they were used and abused by the US military for quite some time before they had been able to get away with help from one of the military soldiers.

This was managed due to Heather's involvement with one of the special agents, Orion, who helped them all escape. He was a guest at the base at the time, helping with their secret project, and he developed a liking for the alien guests and helped them escape, after seeing how they were really treated by his own. He however was gunned down and killed subsequently by his own people as he helped them escape.

She and her companions had been in the company of the US military, secretly hidden from the public for over five years and this soldier couldn't take the inhuman treatment the supposed aliens were getting. He had helped them escape and realising that he would be in more than just a small amount of trouble if he returned himself, tried to go with them, but didn't make it. He had told them of Dragon Valley Base, of which they already knew about, but couldn't tell him that. And that was what led them into Ella's company.

How Orion had known about Ella's base was another matter entirely at the time.

Heather stood on her own looking out over the vast expanse that was Cybertron. She admitted to herself that this place was somewhat familiar; it reminded her of the apartment on Delta Four and the view from the balcony of that old apartment. She also thought of her daughter. She had joined her here today with Heather's old mechanoid partner. The mechanoid, Lady One, had been given a new shell, a pink, gold and white, long nosed Semi truck with a trailer, laden with ammunition and weapons to be used by the transformers during the upcoming battle. She beamed at the fact Lita had gotten herself a very well paying job, but grimaced at the fact she transported arms for contractors and the US military back on Earth. She was just not into wars and fighting anymore. And she wanted nothing to do with the US military or the EDC on Earth at all but she made an exception for Ella.

Ella showed up from where she had come from and had a little giggle as she felt what Heather was thinking. "You'll change your mind when you see who is here!"

Heather cocked an eyebrow at Ella when she said it, but then got what she was talking about a minute later, "Oh yeah!" she sighed; "I'd forgotten this is his place!" she kind of smiled. Optimus Prime was her favourite out of all the Autobots. Not only because she liked how he looked, but also his whole persona.

"Sure you did! You know its ok to have a little crush on someone!" Ella is still lightly giggling.

"Yeah I suppose it is!" muses Heather, "Guess I've been single for far too long that's all."

Heather was also a fervent believer of what Optimus Prime and the Autobots stood for and believed in.

Ella knew that Heather didn't originally want to come today and get involved, but since Optimus would be here on Cybertron, that part of her that was still young at heart wanted to meet and greet with her hero, albeit without coming across to Optimus as a silly little school girl with a crush.

Heather was on guard duty outside the hangar in her armoured mech mode with another. This was Rayleigh, Laura's aunt, as well as Heather's younger sister Hailey, Heather's daughter Lita, another female named 'Stretch', and her Autobot partner Stronghold, who was a friend of Steamrail's and also ex Deltronian military personnel.

Ella looked around inside the hangar for her intended target. Sound Track was leaning up against a wall watching the entire goings on inside the room. Her twin sister Flashdance was in her car mode, beating out some tunes from her immaculate vehicle sound stereo system from the far end of the hangar.

Outside, Optimus Prime and some other Autobots had shown up to see what Ella and her soldiers were doing to prepare. Upon hearing the music, Jazz and Blaster happily went inside the hangar on Prime's leave and joined the others in their fun.

"Those are some real groovy tunes you're beating out, Flash'! Can you play it any louder?" asked Blaster.

"This level is fahne for now, otherwahse ah'd be bringin' tha roof down around us! Just enjoy it, won't y'all?" she replied.

Optimus had found Ella inside the hangar door on her way to see Sound Track, and motioned for her to go outside to talk. Hailey and Lita went inside to join the others, leaving Heather, Stretch and Stronghold outside in the peace and quiet of the landing area of Iacon.

"I thought you would be briefing your soldiers for a battle strategy, as I have just finished doing with mine?" Optimus told Ella.

"I was just about to discuss something with Sound Track actually." She paused for a moment outside, to see several of Prime's soldiers around the area. "Don't worry, we have something in mind, and will back you and your soldiers up as you need it." She looks into the hangar, "I'm just letting them relaxed before the battle."

"As if they haven't had enough of a time out already," said Sunstreaker, from a vantage point above them. He jumps down and took a stance next to his twin, Sideswipe, who was close by.

"You're just upset Sunny, 'cause Burnout beat you in a drinking contest, that's all. Besides, you didn't even join us during the last few solar cycles." replied Sideswipe.

"I don't think he can hold his fuel very well either!" Mused Ella.

"How'd you know about that!" fumes Sunstreaker.

"Word gets around, especially between my gossipy girls!" she replies.

Sideswipe was snickering uncontrollably and got a punch in the arm from Sunstreaker. Sideswipe would've retaliated if Optimus hadn't been looking dead at his optics and shook his head as a 'no' to caution him first. He rubs his arm scowling, turns to Ella and says, "Those femmes of yours sure know how to have fun!" Optimus laughed, as he knew exactly what they had all been up to during the last week especially in regards to Sunstreaker challenging Burnout to a fuel drinking contest that resulted in Sunstreaker needing to have his fuel tanks pumped from over consumption. Sideswipe still wouldn't let his twin live it down though, he noticed, even though the event had made him lose most of credits to Smokescreen and Mirage.

Optimus had allowed his soldiers to relax too, but the last few days had had them busy with battle preparations at Iacon, getting everything in order.

Ella joined in with the laughter also, before saying, "Why don't you go and have some more fun, Sideswipe?" as she motioned towards the hangar. She looked over to Optimus, "That is if it's ok with you?"

Optimus nodded. "It will be a long cycle when the Decepticon's get here; they still need some relaxation time."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Hey, sure, why not?" He turned to Sunstreaker. "You comin', bro'?"

Sunstreaker looked at Sideswipe. "Some of us actually have work to do." Sunstreaker was thinking about finding a quiet isolated spot for some private martial arts training.

Sideswipe waved him off, and then left. Tracks, Hound and Bluestreak, however, stay with Optimus and return to Iacon with him.

Ella watched them transform and drive off towards Iacon. She had only just turned to find Sound Track inside the hangar again, only to have the femme already standing behind her. "Heh!" she says slightly surprised, "I've really got to learn that you can do that, sneaking up on me quietly and closing off your mind to me so I won't even see or feel you next to me!" She finds a quiet spot for both of them outside and discusses her concerns to Sound Track about Decellion.

After they all had left for Iacon, Sunstreaker looks for a quiet spot to do some private training close by, but finds Sunstar while he was doing so.

She had left Iacon earlier in the day to be alone. Sunstreaker didn't know why till he saw her briefly, training on one of the ridges outside of Iacon. Sunstreaker had become fascinated with all the moves she was going through. He recognized it as Metalikato. He was not one to admit he didn't know very much about it but he had seen some archived vids of it before all records of its existence was completely banned from society just before the war started.

"Nice form." He calls out to her.

She thought she had chosen a spot out of sight and was quite surprised when she found Sunstreaker watching her go through her fighting techniques. She waited till she was done with her flow techniques before she acknowledged him properly. She made her way up to his location.

"Thank you." She smiled and nodded to him on the way past returning to her temporary quarters at Iacon, that Prime had provided for them while they were here.

Sunstreaker found himself watching after her for a fair while before returning to what he wanted to do. He shook his head, and decided that becoming infatuated with a femme wasn't worth it, not with all this fighting going on. But still she was something to look at to look at. He smirked to himself as he took over her spot and began some training of his own.

Later in space, en route to Cybertron...

Inside his new flagship, Galvatron was monitoring Cybertron from a distance, and strategizing for the best plan of attack. Several of his most loyal soldiers were manning the controls of the new ship, which the Dominion had given him. Decellion had since joined them on the bridge and quietly watched the goings on from a place near Galvetron.

"Scourge," said Galvetron gruffly. "Status report."

The ruthless leader of the Sweeps got up suddenly and looked up to his master. "We will be within firing range of Cybertron in less than a mega-cycle, Lord Galvatron." He sat down again after bowing to Galvatron, and murmured to another Decepticon to his right, a Constructicon named Scrapper, about readying the weapons system for attack when ordered.

Decellion was standing off to one side of the command chair. Using her good eyesight, she saw Cybertron in the distance and opened her mind to the area she was viewing. She then commented to Galvatron, without looking at him. "Hmmm…They know we are coming. I suggest you employ a different strategy of attack from this point."

Galvetron looked around at her.

"How did she know that?" Cyclonus whispers to another Constructicon standing next to him, who shrugs vaguely in response to the comment Cyclonus had just made.

Galvatron had learned not to discount her ability to perceive things far better than he could, and that was one reason he kept her around making full use of her. "What exactly did you have in mind?" he asked her, not wanting to accept help from her, but at the same time wanting information from her.

Decellion, still looking straight ahead, smiled an evil smile.

Sound Track and Ella had been talking at length.

"Ya'll think she's after them again!" Sound Track remembers the last attempt by Decellion to take the Power Matrice Artefacts. "Ah barely survahved that tahme. But then ah wasn't what ah am now, as ah was then."

Ella responded, "Well it's no coincidence that Bonecrusher happened upon our location either." Nova hasn't said anything yet but I know her power grid is more faded than what it was before. She's definitely passed her Power Matrice onto Bonecrusher. You inherited yours from my cousin Marina, and Optimus has another one. The presence of our two should be enough to charge the Autobot Matrix somewhat since it's drained and be of use to us. It's been useless to them ever since 2007 when they used it on the Hate Plague on Earth."

Novara and Bonecrusher had just turned up. Overhearing most of the conversation. "Well at least I don't have to tell you anything! You always were one step ahead of me kid!" she snickers.

Bonecrusher looks down at Novara. She is still in her beast mode and has been since she arrived here on Cybertron. "Time for facing facts I do believe." She comments. She begins her transformation from her Tyrannosaurus Rex beast mode to her robot mode, finishing rather quicker than usual. "I feel so stiff from being a beast for so long. Even though I do prefer it, but…I cannot stay that way forever. And I do appreciate this new power charger you have given me Novara, it will come in very handy for the forthcoming battle."

Ella looks at Sound Track. She thinks _'Power charger?'_ Sound track looks back at her and shrugs. Ella then turns her attention to Bonecrusher, "Do you have any ideas you'd like to add to our battle plan?"

First Bonecrusher looks to Ella, and then she looks to Sound Track. "I have more than an idea. I have a few extra soldiers in cryo-stasis aboard Blindside."

"So that's whaht those were for?" questions Sound Track, "Ah just couldn't see through the lasah grid protectin' tha pods. Ah just thought they were empty."

Bonecrusher smiles, "I will save them for later if we need them.

"I had the same problem Sound Track had. I wonder where you picked up the technology for that?" Says Ella looking to her maternal unit, who smirks. "Doesn't matter though. Who do you have?" she asks.

Bonecrusher only smiles, "We've got Rapture, Headstrong and Handglide. They were damaged in that fight and when we arrived here we just left them in cryogenic restoration for repairs, they should be ready by now."

"Good." Comments Sound Track. "Have them ready on standbah just in case."

On Earth, the Dinobots had turned up at Autobot City, among a very surprised group of Protectobots left to guard the city in the absence of their comrades now on Cybertron.

"Where all Autobots? Me, Grimlock, want to know, now!" said a frustrated, giant mechanical Tyrannosaur, stamping his feet.

"They're not here, Grimlock, they went to Cybertron to fight Decepticons," replied First Aid, quietly and politely.

"This no fun," said Slag, another of the mechanoid dinosaurs. "We come here for fight, and they go another place to fight!"

The other Dinobots clamour in agreement, until Grimlock shuts them up. "Me, Grimlock, want to go to Cybertron, and me want to go now!" he said angrily to Groove, who had just come in on the conversation.

Surprised at what was going on, Groove had no response, but Jetfire, having heard the commotion, came out to see what was happening. "Did someone say they want to go to Cybertron?" he asked matter-of-factly.

"Yes." Grimlock stands tall to make himself look intimidating "Me, Grimlock, not come all the way from Dinobot Island just to sit here on Auto-butt with other Dinobots in Autobot City and find out other Autobots fight Decepticons on Cybertron without us."

"Well," said Jetfire, "I don't exactly have orders to stay here, nor do I have any to stay out of the fight, so I'll take you along to Cybertron, Dinobots. I'll refuel and be ready to take you okay." They wait for a short time while he goes to a refuelling station to fill his tanks for the long journey to Cybertron.

It didn't take too long and when he got back to where the Dinobots were still waiting, he transformed, and then said, "Hop in!" They all squeezed into Jetfire's loading bay, and then he took off once they were all inside.

Blades, Streetwise and Hotspot had all been listening to the conversation from a distance.

Hotspot asked Groove, "Better hope Prime is better equipped to deal with them, rather than we were." He chuckled slightly to himself, and then promptly returned to his work once he could no longer see Jetfire's chassis up above.

On Cybertron, the battle had already begun, and had been in full swing for some time. Decellion and Galvatron had split up their forces, to attack on two different fronts, forcing the Autobots and their guests to rethink their strategy. Their method of attack was an unknown and unexpected development that had indeed caught them off guard.

Ella had left Joyride and Flashdance at Autobot HQ in Iacon with Blaster and Bluestreak, while she had taken Flash's case of animechs she'd brought along and headed into the fight in her Biomode, with Heather, Stretch, Hailey and Ray.

Stretching her mind out, she could see where everyone was fighting. Prime had given Hot Rod command of a group, and along with Kup, they were fighting up a frenzy against the Dominion Destron mechs, out west in the Uraya sector.

Optimus Prime and his main team of soldiers were strewn out all over Altihex, and under heavy fire, while others had joined Ella and her group near Iacon, where they were now fighting. Optimus and his group were slowly fighting their way back to Iacon, through the Decepticon soldiers.

Jazz and his team from Earth had been driven all the way down to sonic canyons, close to Sound Track, against a group of Destron mechs. Sound Track had only half of her team, as she was directly north of the canyons with some 'Roughnecks' members, Timewarp, as well as Sunstar and Burnout. The latter two had gotten separated from them and were quite possibly fighting alone somewhere. The rest of her team, consisting of Landslide, Ranger, Freestyle and Vanguard, had been pushed further north to the Tagon Heights area.

But now Sound Track had been separated from the rest of her dwindling group, and had ended up near the canyons, where she ran into Jazz and his group.

"You've lost a few mechs I see Sound Track!" Jazz joked, amidst avoiding the gunfire buzzing around him.

"Ah haven't lost anyone yet!" she said dryly. "Ah may be blind, but even through all this noise ah can still hear them fahtin' up north ya'll." She then raced off, transforming from robot mode to her Earthen blue Porsche alternate mode, to run down a few more Destron mechanoids that were close by, keeping her from the rest of her group.

While the confusion was going on down on the planet, Decellion had her chance to go after what she was here for.

Cyclonus noticed her leave the ship and asked Soundwave to send Laserbeak after her to be watched. Not realising Decellion already knew what they would do and deliberately led Laserbeak astray on the planet.

Once she had lost the mechanoid bird, she found the entry to an old place, she thought she'd never find again. This place was near Iacon and it was the chamber of the ancients.

"It has not changed much since my day." She murmured to herself. She noticed that Laserbeak had found her again and was hiding up above her, but she ignored the beast this time and found the switch she was looking for.

Before she could look through the door in the floor that had been opened, she was surprised by the entry into the room of another beast mechanoid. There was also radiation affecting her from the energon glow in the floor.

She recognized the beast as one of the group that had attacked one of the outposts in the Dominion recently. She was surprised to see this one up and around again after the damage it had received.

Decellion eyed off the beast and it did the same to her. She felt no fear of it, thinking her superior power would keep her safe. So when it charged and gored her in the mid section, the immense pain took her by surprise. She grabbed and threw off the animal and pulled out the horn that had come off of the beast and had stuck into her.

She was angry now. Angry that this primitive animal had touched her, had even _attacked_ her, her, far superior to this insignificant Earthen beast.

"You will pay for that you ugly wretched waste of creation!" she growled.

The beast was almost smiling. "I look forward to it." It spoke. It then transformed from a Styracosaurus alternate mode to a female robot mode. "Aren't ye forgetting where ye are Decellion? This is Sigma Prime, or at least it used ta be. Ye have no power here."

Decellion was loathe to admit the Deltronian was right. She had let this small piece of very important information slip her mind and the radiation she was seeing on her sensors, affecting her judgement was the energy from an old mortal enemy of hers. She could feel the mind of this planet around her through that open door and knew who it belonged to. She had no choice; she had to get out of this room and now. It was different now than it had been before.

She was just as surprised that the mechanoid knew who she was. She would have to relinquish the fight to this one for now and retreat, allowing her wound to heal, then try to go for the Power Matrice again later.

She quickly used her scanners and found the open chamber empty and did not like what she saw with her mind. _'One of them must have it?'_ she thought. Then she quickly retreated into the shadows away from her attacker with Laserbeak not too far behind.

When they had both left, Headstrong radioed Bonecrusher to let her know what just happened.

'_Good.'_ Replied Bonecrusher over the radio, _'Now stay there in case she returns again.'_ Headstrong didn't like being there, she wanted to be out in the battle, but orders were orders. She didn't have the power to confront Bonecrusher, at least not anymore. Not now that it was obvious her commander had just received a new power boost.

At Iacon, Ultra Magnus and his team had rejoined Ella's group. He was marvelling at Warhammer and Stronghold's battle prowess.

The Destron mechs had moved further north from where they had started, and were now being driven to invade Iacon at any expense.

Bonecrusher had been fighting to the south, in Altihex. Optimus Prime and his soldiers charged up through the rear of the Destrons, and once in front of them she let out an almighty roar that made several of them turn and run. Optimus, unable to keep the Decepticons back in Altihex, decided to retreat back to Iacon with whoever was still able to follow.

Heather turned to Ella and said, "You know, you have a real knack for dragging me into messes I don't want anything to do with, don't you? I should slap you for that!"

Ella smiled back at her firing a plasma gun, and replied, "Yeah right, like you aren't enjoying the thrill of the battle right now."

"Ok, you got me on that one," she said laughingly, and charged past Optimus in a fearless fury to take down several Destron mechs more than twice her size, who were beginning to team up against Optimus.

Optimus thanked Heather for her assistance. She bowed slightly towards him, and then charged off to fight more mechs, commenting as she went. "It's not the size that counts, its how committed your heart is to defending the rights to freedom, right Optimus?"

He stopped shooting his laser rifle for a moment amidst the enemy fire, and thought about what she had said. "Right," he replied, but was slightly disturbed at her comment, as it was very similar to something Elita-1 had said right before she had been terminated, as Ultra Magnus had told him in the past. He returned to fighting the mechs, not wanting to remember the memories Heather's comment had brought up in him over his beloved Elita-1 and not being there for her when she had passed on to the Allspark.

Jazz and his team had finally begun to make his way north through to Tagon Heights with his group, and had found the rest of Sound Track's team in the process. They were also bringing along the first part of her team.

Sound Track had realized that she had lost Vanguard somewhere. She was told by Ranger that she had taken Freestyle and Landslide back to Iacon for medical assistance, due to their bad injuries.

Overhead, she could hear Powerglide giving Blitzwing a run for his money, outmanoeuvring him to avoid being hit by his blast shots. Elsewhere, Timewarp was busily trying to outrun two Decepticon jets who had joined their party, Dirge and Ramjet.

At least they had until the Aerialbots joined the fight, too. Having disposed of Thrust and freed Powerglide to attack some other unsuspecting enemy jet, they had quickly started after the other two, but were cut off by Astrotrain. Meanwhile, Burnout and Sunstar were having a real good time with all the mechs that were throwing themselves at them on the ground.

Jazz's team of mechs - Bumblebee, Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Cliffjumper, Hound and Tracks – weren't faring much better, either, but they were slowly but surely pushing their way through, to return to Iacon. Even though they could see they were greatly outnumbered, they still fought on valiantly.

Out west in Uraya, Hot Rod, Kup, and a team that consisted of Gears, Smokescreen, Cosmos, Quickswitch, and the two triple changers, Broadside and Sandstorm, along with a few of the rest of the Wreckers group, and were having a hard time fighting against a Destron mech team called the Necromancers, and had to fall back to Iacon with the others.

The rest of Optimus Prime's team, currently consisting of the Throttlebots, joined up once again with Optimus and the Tecnobots in Iacon. They had been pushed back to Iacon due to the combined efforts of Galvatron, Scourge and the Sweeps, along with various other Decepticon soldiers and some Destrons still up and moving.

Galvatron noticed Prime through the blitz of the fire fighting going on, and retorted, "How convenient that you should all be in one place for us to terminate you, Prime."

Optimus replied confidently, "I'd like to see you try and terminate us all, Galvatron. So far, you've failed to do even that to me."

Galvatron was furious at his retort and attacked. The two got to fight each other head on, oblivious to all others around them.

Back on the Decepticon Ship, Cyclonus has been left in charge; with Soundwave and the Constructicons there as part of a back up force to be released after a certain time frame.

Cyclonus, however, had noticed Decellion leaving before. And with Soundwave's help he also saw where she went on the planet through Laserbeak's reports. He had lost her at some stage after she had left that chamber, and decided to leave her to it. He had Laserbeak report on the battlefield instead. He decided it was the right time to have Devastator level the field of battle, as it was now the time that had been indicated by Galvetron.

Decellion had again gotten away from Laserbeak, heading to the far south away from Iacon and that chamber. Once she was out of that chamber and away from the radiation of the energy that she realised led to the core of this planet, her wounds began to heal.


	13. Chapter 13 Prehistoric Fanfare

In The Beginning

Prehistoric Fanfare

On the other side of Cybertron…

Jetfire had arrived and was preparing his descent.

"You Jetfire too late!" exclaims Grimlock as he looks out the viewing windows, "Battle already start and look like all good Decepticons taken."

Jetfire chimed in and said, "But there are more than just Decepticons down there that the Autobots are fighting Grimlock. I'm sure you'll have plenty to romp and stomp on!"

He landed away from the main fighting and allowed the Dinobots to disembark. He transformed and joined Optimus and the others, along with the Dinobots.

Optimus did not readily notice Jetfire and the Dinobots arrive, as he was too busy fighting Galvetron.

The Dinobots however picked their opponents and started fighting; their actions were noticed straight away by all those around them.

At Iacon command, Blaster and Bluestreak had taken control of the weapons system, and were now firing on the Decepticons and Destron mechs outside, to keep them at bay.

Whilst Kup and some of the others close by were trying to get back inside, Hot Rod was being his usual devil may care self, tearing through whatever mechs he could find, and taking them down. His daredevil drive, however, was cut short when a stray blast from Galvatron's fusion cannon hit Burnout, who had just joined the others, and made her fly head on into Hot Rod in his vehicle mode.

"Hey, Big Red, you seem to have a habit of falling on us guys, don't you?" he jested, as they both picked themselves up from the rubble they were under.

"Tha's nae true, lad," she replied coolly. "You male folk jus' like tae be under me!"

They laughed, dusted themselves off and then returned to the battle at hand.

Elsewhere in Iacon, Jazz and his team were pinned down by Destron mechs, still stuck between Decellion and Death Strike with her other mechs, and also the Destrons and Decepticons in front of them.

"We're surrounded!" exclaimed Bumblebee.

"Now that's an understatement!" comments Cliffjumper.

"We're not surrounded for long!" said a confident Sideswipe, as he knocked fists with his twin brother playfully, and both smiled devilishly. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe both proceeded to cut their way through the line of Destrons, doing what they do best, causing as much damage as possible.

Sunstar went to join the twins in their fight, but Jazz held her back. "I think it would be best if you didn't get in their way. You don't know how rough they can both get. We wouldn't want you to get that pretty little faceplate of your damaged now would we!" he cautioned.

Sunstar only smiled. She politely bowed to him then went to join the twins. She surprised Jazz being even more ruthless than Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, surprising them also, in her fighting techniques as she fought her way through the crowd of Destrons that had surrounded them and cut them off from getting back to Iacon.

'_Guess I'll just have to keep an eye on her, too!'_ thought Jazz to himself. "Hound, Tracks, Cliffjumper, Bumblebee! Follow me, we got work ta do," ordered Jazz, and they followed him off through the crowd, inching ever closer to Iacon.

To the north of Iacon, Grimlock and his Dinobot soldiers were having a merry old time destroying everything in sight.

"Me, Grimlock, no care who bad guy is; me, Grimlock, just love to fight!" said their commander. "Me Grimlock, King!" He roared for all he was worth and then turned to tear through the chassis of a Destron who had just tried to shoot at him. Then he saw a few more Destrons coming at his team from all sides, and ordered his troops. "You, Snarl, go there," he said, pointing to a hidden rise just behind them. "Hide and do tail stuff as bad guys come here."

Snarl quickly wandered off to the hidden spot indicated by Grimlock, and immediately caught several Destrons unaware as they approached.

"You Slag and You Sludge go and trample those bad guys there." Slag and Sludge chased after the ones Snarl missed.

"And you Swoop go fight from in air." All the Dinobots diligently followed their Commander's orders.

Grimlock, however, had spotted Bonecrusher further south of their position, and became curious. Not knowing that there was another Tyrannosaurus mechanoid like him. The dinosaur appeared to be a more furious fighter than he was, and of all things, was a Tyrannosaurus like he was. He wasn't impressed, he suddenly felt somewhat territorial.

'_What another T rex doing here on this planet. It enemy or friend?' _He watched as Bonecrusher fought the Destrons and crushed them under her feet and between its jaws, rather quickly and swiftly.

'_Me, Grimlock, better fighter than that,'_ he thought, _'but me, Grimlock, take closer look, anyways.'_

"Dinobots, follow me, more robots to fight this way." He called out to his team and they all responded, then Grimlock pointed to the south, and they all headed in that direction, trampling and crushing several damaged Destrons in their wake.

Near the main part of Iacon, the fight between Optimus Prime and Galvatron was still going on. They had managed to tear up a fair amount of the grounds around Iacon in their furious personal battle.

Jazz, Sound Track and their teams had managed to get through the lines of fire to rejoin their comrades at Iacon, but at a price.

Sound Track had only Burnout, Vanguard and Sunstar left. The rest had all been taken to be repaired once they had been retrieved from the battle field.

Jazz had lost Hound and Tracks. They too had been taken in by the medical units for repairs.

Elsewhere, Bonecrusher had just fired her particle beam cannon and had taken her foot locks off of the ground. She shook out her tail as the steam from her internal engines needed to cool down, and she begun to move again.

She shook herself out and looked out proudly over the battle field. She was very impressed with this new power device that Novara had given her. It was powerful and effective. She could use her internal cannon and feel normal instead of being drained constantly by it. And her external weapons were not running out of ammunition so easily.

She was disappointed that her friend Novara did not opt to join her out on the battle field. This was her rightful place too, but she knew that Bioroids aged differently than her kind, and Novara was not as young as she used to be and so had chosen to help back in the medilabs instead, where she would be very useful.

She reminisced on the battles back in the Delta system that she was initially made for. Although her origins were organic, being that she used to be a real flesh and blood Tyrannosaurus from Earth's prehistory, found injured and made cybernetic by Nova, she was quite proud of how she had evolved into this battle machine she had now become.

Bonecrusher was tearing up the place, knocking down and pretty much destroying anything and every that got in her way, revelling in the destruction.

She got sentimental to the thrill of battle and so stepped atop a pile of dead Destron shells and roared as loud as she could rather triumphantly.

While up above her, Handglide, her aerial scout was surveying the battle below her and dropping her home made incendiary bombs on unsuspecting Destrons. It was drawing their fire away from Bonecrusher, but her Commander didn't mind. Handglide swiftly avoided the enemy fire and continued to duck and weave among their air attacks. She had inadvertently flew into the Decepticons fighting area and attracted the attention of Buzzsaw, whom she was currently evading with ease.

Elsewhere somewhere around the battle field was another Dinosaur mech called Rapture. She had been spending the better part of an hour gaining control of one or two enemy minds and used them to shot at each other. The ones that she could not control, that were too strong for her to do so, she used her agility and slashing claws to rip and tear at them and take them down in the cold ruthless manner to which she was well known for in the Delta system. She used any method she could to take them down, when one was down she just as quickly, moved onto the next mech, one after the other.

Bonecrusher had spotted the Dinobots coming in from the north, and moved to stop the Destrons from getting to them. But Grimlock objected to her help.

"Me, Grimlock, no need femme bot help to fight, me, Grimlock, King!" he exclaimed arrogantly and confidently as he had noticed her gender when she had been conversing with the other dinosaur mechanoids in the vicinity.

Bonecrusher narrowed her optics, and thought, _'Great, just what we need, another arrogant fool!'_ She momentarily turned away from Grimlock and his soldiers as her own were continuing to report in. She caught sight of Rapture leaping up onto the top of terminated Destron bodies and also Handglide, who landed on a heavy piece if rubble nearby. "Report?"

"More action to tha south, Guv." Stated Handglide in a very cockney British accent.

"I concur." Agreed Rapture snakily.

"Then we go south through whatever line the enemy has, no matter what." She paused for a moment and clicked her radio, "Headstrong, come in"

'_Receiving,'_ came the reply.

"Fall in to our location. It's hunting time!"

'_About bloody time! Headstrong out.' _The Styracosaurus answered with her slight Brooklyn accent.

Bonecrusher still ignored the Dinobots and transformed to her robot mode. She was much taller than Grimlock and chuckled slightly while looking at him, amused it seemed by her own personal joke.

This annoyed Grimlock, who thought she was laughing at him. She was clearly a head taller than he was in robot mode. And he noticed she wasn't the slightest bit intimidated by him. It made him feel rather small.

"Why you laugh at our boss, Grimlock?" snorted Slag angrily, ready to attack Bonecrusher.

She turned her attention away from Slag momentarily, to deal with attacking Destrons with her extra long prehensile tail which converted into an extendable whip with slashing blades and a grabbing claw at the end of it, while she was in her robot mode. She disconnected it from its housings in her lower back and whipped it towards the Destrons, slicing them through the middles horizontally. She then turns her attention back to Slag and asks, "I'm sorry? You were saying?"

Grimlock had in the meantime taken his attention off of Bonecrusher and ordered Sludge and Snarl to attack the Destrons milling around nearby. He also sent Swoop up into the air for an aerial survey of the battle again, whereas Handglide, curious about another pterosaur happily joined him for some reconnaissance.

Bonecrusher turned back and locked optics with Slag for a moment, but then ignored him and wandered off elsewhere to fight more Destrons, leaving Slag's question unanswered.

"Hey where you go, you no answer question?" he yells after her and follows in her direction, still angry and trudging along in his Triceratops mode.

Slag didn't get very far as he was cut off by Headstrong in her robot mode as she joined the party. "Oi, ya gotta problem with me boss tricero-clutz, then you gotta problem with me. Now back off and get back to ya business. I'm sure ya boss wants ya to listen to 'is orders now."

Grimlock watched them converse from a distance. "She right, Slag. We got work to do and bad guys to terminate. Get back to business and follow orders." Grimlock hadn't really cared that Slag had gone off on a tangent. He had appreciated his soldier's concern for him, but this femme was right. There was a battle blazing all around them and there was work to be done.

Slag grumbled, very hostile towards the bossy femme bot and then left to fight some Destrons as Grimlock had ordered him to. "Me not go 'cause you say so. Me go 'cause him Grimlock my boss, not you!" he calls after the female as she transforms back to her dinosaur mode and charges off to fight a Destron mechanoid soldier.

Handglide had since returned to her sitting spot after flying for a bit with Swoop and was readjusting her bomb attachments under her wings. Rapture had been cleaning out the metal shards from in between her clawed toes and didn't care what was going on.

"Ya know if I di'n know any betta', I'd say Grimlock either likes Bones or is insanely jealous of 'er bein' bigger than 'e is." Commented Handglide.

Rapture didn't care. She looks at Handglide, "Do I look like I even care about what you just said bird brain?" and with that she runs off for more destruction amidst the battle.

Handglide shrugged her shoulders at the indifference, "Oh well! A'least Rapture will always be Rapture. Stuck up li'l psycho-snot that she is!" She transforms to her Pterodactyl mode and spreads her wings. Before she takes off, she lets out a battle cry to warn the Destrons and then flies off to find someone to bomb again.

Bonecrusher trudged her way south in her robot mode. She found herself an obstacle in the form of a crevice. She could see a few of the Dinobots behind her and commented, "Where I'm going you can't follow." They wondered what she was talking about, till she transformed into her beast mode yet again, ejected the hover converters from her rear upper legs, rose into the air for a few metres and then took off over the crevice to the other side.

She left Grimlock and his team behind, having to find their own way from atop the ridge they were on, to the battle not far below them at Iacon.

Further south, amongst the main fighting, Heather had ended up with Rayleigh and her motorbike mech partner, Firefly, who was currently transformed as her mech armour, providing Rayleigh with some needed extra protection. Peter, with his mech vehicle; Hailey, with Highway, another motorbike mecha; and Stretch, with Stronghold, were also fighting nearby.

"You know, girls, if we don't get some extra firepower soon, we might be done for. I hope Lita gets here soon with all that extra ammo she's bringin' from Iacon. I've heard rumours of Death Strike's strength, but wasn't willin' to believe it till I saw it for myself!" uttered Rayleigh under heavy fire.

"Someone might think you were starting to lose your courage Ray'!" commented Heather jokingly, as she shot at a Destron soldier close by through her arm. It had been transformed into a photonic pulse cannon, and knocked down any Destron who happened to be in its line of fire with one shot.

"Well, we all can't be as fearless as you, Heather dearest!" Ray laughed.

"And we all can't be as hot-headed and rash as you, can we?" Heather replied back, "You could almost think you were indestructible. They looked at each other then turned their full attention back to the fighting, and continued to fire on the Destrons that were attacking them from their bolt hole.

One of the Destron Necromancers had gotten the better of War Hammer not too far off from their position, and she now lay motionless on the metal surface of Iacon, in dire need of medical aid. Stronghold had gone to her aid, but had also been taken down in the process by a shot from Decellion in her Death Strike form.

Stretch had gotten out of her little seat in Stronghold's chest area. All she could do was take cover under the unconscious chassis' of her friends, making mechanical repairs to both while under heavy fire from all around her in hoped that medical help would soon be there.

Somewhere in amongst the fighting here, Ella had let loose the rest of Flashdance's animecha to fight on their own and they, too, were having their own fun, and also troubles. Some of them were large enough to take on the smallest of the Destron soldiers, but not all.

These Destron's were mainly between 7 to 9 foot tall in comparison with a human. Some were in mech suits, matching their size and strength with that of the transformers, and some were smaller, closer to human sizes. And it was their sheer, unexpected numbers that were taking the Cybertronians and their assists off guard, and hopelessly they continued to struggle to keep the fight going their way.

Up in the skies, Jetfire had joined the fight, and was being pursued by the Sweeps, who in turn, were being pursued by the Aerialbots.

Cosmos and Powerglide had taken care of Dirge and were now on the run from Ramjet, skilfully outmanoeuvring him as they avoided being hit by his laser fire, and also coming across several aerial Destron fighters in the meantime.

Ella had gone to a high spot in order to oversee the battle after she had let Flash's animecha loose. She gazed from place to place, but her mind wandered to Hot Rod, as she could see him in the distance with Kup, driving around like crazy.

She wondered why fate had seen fit to allow a new connection to this young mech into her network system, as she knew anyone who came into contact with her techno-organic blood eventually became a part of her power core's hub network. As she watched him, she smiled; he hadn't realized yet that he wasn't even using his own energon supply, that he was using power directly from Ella's power grid, just as some of the other Roughnecks team members were currently doing. Her power supply wasn't open all the way though. What was being used was her general supply system. If her inner core began to flow with power then the ones who were connected to her system could use special abilities not ordinarily available to them in normal combat modes, like they were in now.

She spotted Sunstar below her, engaged in a fight with the Decepticon six changer Six Shot. They were so close to Jazz and his remaining group and not too far from the rest of Sound Track's team.

Not far off, the fight between Optimus and Galvatron was taking place. She had also espied her original target, Decellion. She knew that she was there inside that recognizable shell of Death Strike's.

It would be the first time she had come face to face, so to speak, with the one she herself had imprisoned in that zero space all those years ago.

Looking at the mech form now, she could see that Death Strike had control of the form and Decellion retained the mind. It mattered not what form she used now. She could always tell that dark witches stench from anything in existence. She had been a bane to her and all her kind since long before she was created, and long before her Bioroid ancestors had existed too. That went way back to Angellion times.

She knew Decellion had gotten out of the cage that she had put her in so long ago, and something had to be done about it. She had figured out that Decellion had come here looking for the Power Matrice, and by now after finding the Chamber of the Ancients devoid of her prize, would go looking for it amongst whoever she could smell it on. But she hadn't seen it yet. Sound Track and Bonecrusher still had theirs hidden, with orders not to show their power unless they absolutely had to, Bonecrusher having being briefed about what she was now carrying before the battle started.

It would not be too long before Decellion would figure it out that Optimus Prime had one of the Matrices, and he would become a target to her.

Inside Iacon, a group of mechs was having some trouble.

"Lock the door, dammit!" screamed Flashdance at her younger sister, Joyride.

A group of Destron mechanoids had decided to break into Iacon and theirs was the first room they had come across that was occupied. Flashdance and Joyride were busy trying to keep them out, while Blaster and Bluestreak kept at the ones outside with the weapons systems.

Joyride just looked at her elder sister, raised a single brow, and then shot at the door lock controls, fusing the lock of the door, and locking them all in.

"Great! Now how are we supposed to get out of here? You've locked us all in!" Bluestreak said menacingly to Joyride.

"Hey, Blue', keep your struts on! I'm sure this funky gal knew what she was doin'. Otherwise she never would've shot the door control panel in the first place!" Blaster reassured Bluestreak from his spot up on the weapons platform he was on.

Bluestreak apologized to Joyride, who just waved him off.

Flashdance piped up. "Hey, ya'll look ovah here, we can clahmb through this!" she said, indicating to a ventilation shaft, large enough to fit medium sized transformers such as themselves into. "Ah think it leads outsahde?"

"Hey, well let's get groovin' mechs!" commented Blaster. He and Bluestreak set the weapons systems to automatic as quickly as they could and joined the two femmes down below on the lower floor to escape their self made prison.

They all climbed through the duct, which was big enough for all of them, but they still had to crawl through it to escape.

Just as they had shut the grill to the duct they had crawled into, Destrons swarmed the room. Being shot at by the weapons systems on automatic function. Not seeing their prey, they quickly tried to leave while also avoiding getting wounded by the plasma cannons.

Outside, Six Shot and Sunstar were engaged in a one on one battle.

Six Shot thought to himself, _'I haven't had this much fun from a warrior for a very long time. If it is indeed a Cybertronian. She doesn't look or fight like one.' _He marvelled at her prowess, and wondered, _'When I have terminated her, she shall have my respect.'_

As if sensing his thoughts, she smiled at him and backed off slightly, to give their fight some room. And then they continued with their deadly dance.

Many Destrons were already avoiding their fight, after seeing the ferocity of it. And the Autobots glancing back every now and again in the midst of their own fights close by, marvelled at her dangerous composure. These were ones who had not yet seen Sunstar fight.

Six Shot wondered what tactics she would use. He had thus far only seen her robot mode and two transforms, an Earth car and some kind of jet based on that car. He had figured her for a triple changer because of those alternate modes, but was curious. She had been able to keep up with him one on one despite her lack of alternate modes, and he had begun to wonder.

He was caught off guard when she transformed into a large winged Lioness, and attacked him yet again with an altogether new strategy.

In the distance some Autobots had been caught under fire. They were holed up behind a back of debris, taking shelter from enemy fire. The twins were there and were momentarily distracted from the fight by Sunstar's recent transformation.

"That's three now." Says Sunstreaker dryly.

"What, you keepin' count now bro'?" replies Sideswipe, "If I didn't know any better I'd say you were…" Sideswipe is cut off when they are both snapped back into reality. Sideswipe was shot by one of the Destrons and only received a slight wound to the side of his head casing, but he gets up from where he fell and starts shooting at the enemy again alongside his twin.

Elsewhere, Burnout had been hit with a stray blast from Galvatron's Fusion cannon. In retaliation, she had taken her chains out of subspace and used it like a whip, heated it up and swung it in Galvatron's direction. She wrapped it around his midsection and pulled him into the air and over her head to land about a 100 metres away from where he had just been standing.

He was not a very happy Decepticon leader when he got up again. This had given Optimus a chance to get up and rest for a moment. When he had gotten up and noticed Galvatron do the same, he attempted to divert his foe from Burnout. Galvatron had focused his sights on the femme for her flinging him. "Your fight is with me Galvatron, not with her, fight me."

Galvatron had become somewhat disgusted with Burnout for flinging him and had made an attempt to do her some damage, but she had since wandered off to fight some Destrons, and he was left alone with Optimus Prime to which a fight with his old foe was more interesting for now.

They fought long and hard for some time, dealing each other with blow after blow. Optimus had had to admit to himself he wasn't able to keep up with that kind of strength and had begun to falter, but kept fighting valiantly. He had already been disarmed and his weapon damaged beyond repair, his left arm hung limply from severe damage, his right knee joint slightly dysfunctional and his chassis covered top to bottom in cracks from Galvatron's blows. But he was still standing.

By then Burnout had come back to the area of their fight and Heather got her assistance to distract Galvatron for a time while she helped Optimus.

She quickly moved over to him amidst the fire fights that were going on everywhere and asks, "Perhaps I can help?" She had noticed he had no weapon handy.

"How so?" he replies.

"I can't do much for my size and age, but I can reformat myself for a weapons mode transform." She shifts the biometal plates of her mechanoid body armour and transformed herself into a photon cannon. A close replica of his own gun.

He seemed unperturbed by the similarity and quickly took a shot at Galvatron to get his attention again, thanking Heather for her help.

From her vantage point, Ella was not feeling terribly well. It had only just come to her that she was feeling a little overheated by the power fluxes in her core. Thinking her close proximity to Cybertron had begun to trigger her power core's higher drive systems.

She had begun to realise that maybe Vector Sigma had gotten into her system. The computer had done it before, why should it be any different than the feeling she was getting now. She knew she had a responsibility to perform if she was called upon to do so. She finally saw what the problem was and allowed it to take over her, removing her current appearance from the human Biomode she had been to something else entirely.

This new persona was a white mechanoid dragon Transformer. She had not used this form in a very long time since she had been on Cybertron some time ago at the start of the Great War many millions of years ago by Earth standards. It was indeed Vector Sigma who had instigated the change. _'The Computer,'_ she thought, _'It must've taken into account what I'd been doing since I was here last and upgraded my system for its own purposes.'_ She did not mind the forced transformation as she knew she now had work to do and an excuse to cut loose, something she had not done, been able to do in a very long time for a fight.

She unfurled the metal dragon wings and let out a monstrous roar in response to sighting Death Strike's location not too far from her. Death Strike let out a cry in retaliation, which surprised Ella. She did not think that Decellion would have allowed the battle mech to compromise her position so freely.

The high pitched cry - a cross between an eagle's call and an orchestral symphony rang out across the vast expanse that was Cybertron. Everywhere, the battles stopped in response to this new sound. And some cringed in response to the animalistic and demonic return call of Decellion's own battle mech unit.

At their location, Sound Track and Vanguard looked at each other during the war cry and nodded.

"Does that mean what I think it does?" asked the big white femme.

Sound Track knew that Ella had now entered the battle and would now have a different form. The special power grids she afforded them through a hub connection with the exponential generator she had for a power core allowed then certain special abilities at certain times. She turned to her team mate, "Yeah! Tahme ta powah up!" Both femmes reached for special buttons under their weapons relay attachment and pushed them. They ejected special weapons for each individual. A Freeze cannon for Sound Track. An electric hammer for Vanguard.

Ella did not intend on fighting herself when she came along to Cybertron, but circumstances had changed. She was needed as she had been called into action by Vector Sigma, and had to act. She saw this place as hallowed ground, and had to make her choice, and so flew towards Death Strike, and upon arriving to the enemy's location, an immediate battle ensued between the two winged battle mechanoids.

Elsewhere on the battle field, even though fighting had momentarily stopped while the commotion had been going on between Death Strike and Ella, Hot Rod had gone off to the side where he was and transformed into his robot mode, clutching at his head case in pain.

Kup had noticed this, and joined him. "Are you all right, lad?" he asked in concern, placing his hand on Hot Rod's shoulder.

In response to Ella changing into her dragon mode elsewhere and unbeknownst to Hot Rod, the blood virus in his system had started to change him, making his whole body glow at the same time Ella had changed, and so did he begin to change into something stronger his body could handle from the sudden influx of power.

Kup took a few steps back and shielded his optics from the bright white light now enveloping his young student. When the light cleared, Kup really thought his old optics were playing tricks on him, making him see things. "Impossible," he gasped in disbelief.

"Well, this sure is a surprise!" The other commented jokingly, looking at his new chassis. "Just how are we going to explain to Optimus that there are now two Prime's?!"

"And I still don't believe it!" said Kup, laughing as he stared in wonder at Rodimus now standing before him.

Back on Earth, another mechanoid was suffering from similar effects.

He did not have a blood virus like Hot Rod had, but he had alterations and upgrades done to his systems without consent. The materials used were Ella's blood Psion. He was also clutching his head in pain at that moment.

Then, the mechanoid was immediately knocked out by a sudden influx of energy that had come upon him and he was unable to process it all, taking him offline to cope with it.


	14. Chapter 14 Meanwhile Back At The Ranch

In The Beginning

Meanwhile Back At The Ranch

Adam had visited Dragon Valley yet again to check up on some technological research that his science team had been working on.

Even though he was only just starting his secret military project in Port Angeles, he was also constructing several of his own projects here at Dragon Valley research laboratories. He had figured that the military would try and take over his project once they had gotten the hang of it and wanted him out of the picture, only keeping him around for the funding. He had been kind enough to let them build the battle mechanoids he had in mind in the first place. Ones that were infinitely better than the models they had tried to build in years past. But he was also building his own set of mechanoids here at Dragon Valley Base.

It was in the best interests of the planet to develop a front line battle mechanoid as the EDC had yet to come up with anything viable for the time that the Transformers, namely the Autobots had been on Earth. And their scientific studies of the Cybertronians had led to dead ends in terms of making their own transformers.

The EDC had been formed originally to let Earth have a go at defending itself. While its main base of operations was in Washington DC in the United States, it also had a base on the fledgling Moon Base area that they were developing for permanent residency, as well as another base outside of Los Angeles to the north of the sprawling city.

Several days ago Adam had been in contact with the EDC and they were to meet up at Port Angeles Military Installation, awaiting a go over of the project that Adam was developing for them. But at the moment he was busy at the Dragon Valley Base.

During the course of the project's set up, he brought in several of Ella's undercover mechs to weed out any possible spies, unknown to the military of course. Once Adam had been sufficiently convinced it was safe to start he did so, but a few of Ella's special agents remained behind under Adam's direct control, namely a Special Forces mech team known as Team Excelsior. The military viewed this lot as just special agents, damn good at their jobs and people not to be messed with, but little did they know they were not all human after all, some were mechanoids, and others were cyborgs.

He did a tour of the work at the research laboratories and was about to leave.

"Comrede Drake?" called someone.

Adam knew the voice vaguely. It belonged to Ella's right hand mech, Freefall. He had never had the pleasure of seeing her in her Biomode, even though he had known her most of his long human life. "Yes, What is it Freefall?" he answered.

Even though they were alone and she was in her Biomode, Freefall was not keen on being called her mech name. "It is Freya, Comrade Drake, Freya Fallen." The name in itself was kind of contradictory to her as Freya was a Norse goddess of life and she was an accomplished assassin, and the 'Fallen' name was a tie to her old role as a former enemy of the Alliance and now one of their allies.

She paused for a moment while he nodded to her, acknowledging her name, "It is ebout this project. Your mother vishes to meke sure you incorporete design ideas she submitted to you some time ego." She hands over a hand held device, a pocket PC and allows Adam to view some technical schematics of Ella's designs. The same datapad that Starscream had tried to take from her previously.

"Good." Adam said, have those transferred to my pocket PC and I will keep you updated." He had slowly been walking with Freya to his car outside in the car park and had his limousine waiting. "Are you coming along? I'm overdue for a meeting with the EDC Commanders at Port Angeles Base about the project?"

"Da, Comrede Drake, I vill attend meeting vith you." She allows Adam to get in first and then climbs in after him, watching as the car door closes of its own accord. Freya looks around, "This is new model?"

"Indeed." says the car.

"End who might you be?" asks Freya.

"I am known as Roadshow." The car stops talking to Freya and addresses Adam. "Will we be attending the meeting at Port Angeles Military Base, Mr. Drake?"

"Yes we are Roadshow, and if you don't mind, we need to rush, I am already running late."

Inside Dragon Valley Base, below Adam and Freya.

"How in tha pit did we get stuck with a job like this! I mean we're mercs and soldiers not labourers!" whines Hotshot.

"Simmer down Hot-head! We got stuck with it 'cause you had to go and open you big mouth and sass the boss lady." replies Seastriker.

"And now we all have to suffer because of you!" screeches Bombshell. "I wouldn't be stuck here doing this work if you had bothered to keep your vocalisers switched off. When the boss asks you to do something, you do it, period."

"Tha's a laugh comin' from ye! I've read yer background. Ye've gotten in trouble more times than I 'ave with tha boss." Retorts Hotshot in his Irish sounding vocalisers.

"I was younger then, when I first joined this outfit. I'm older now, older than you and much more experienced at working with Freefall."

"B'sides, if all of us are in trouble for me mouthin' off, how come 'tis only us?" asks Hotshot referring to the mech's cleaning up in the armoury.

Seastriker had just finished cleaning his area, helping out Carnage to unload the new weapons in the storage warehouse and hears what Hotshot had said, "Because Nightfall is on leave that Freefall had promised him ages ago…"

"Probably over in England snoggin' that cute lady o' his with tha nice tailgate, ooohee could I do things ta her ta make her squeal!

Seastriker continues despite the interruption. "…Sunstorm has already finished his part and gone back to his quarters to do some meditation…"

"The nut that he is ta be sure!"

"Bombshell and myself are still here with you…"

"Unfortunately…"

Bombshell glares at Hotshot, and Seastriker continues, "…Carnage was going over to England, but instead, Freefall put her on guard duty. I think Thundercracker and Skywarp are undercover in their Biomodes somewhere. Carrion is unloading the new weapons out back. Warblade and Switchblade are upstairs on security detail patrolling the base with Carnage."

"Likely stories!"

"That's it! I've had it with you and your arrogance!" growls Bombshell exasperated. Hotshot thought he was quick enough to evade someone of Bombshell's size, but he wasn't. For a big built soldier she was faster than she looked. She was a triple changer after all. She finally caught up with him and socked him one so hard in the head case that he didn't get up again. "Now isn't that better?" she aims her comment at Seastriker, "Now we have some peace and quiet!"

Seastriker is unperturbed. He just looks at Bombshell, shrugs and then returns to his work cataloguing the new weapons with Carrion in another part of the armoury. Bombshell finished her cleaning, working around her team mates offline chassis. Hotshot was sprawled out on the floor and not moving, quiet as the proverbial mouse

Freya and Adam had been chatting for quite some time over a variety of things. Adam had found her to be a rather quiet and unapproachable individual before, but he realised that if you can get her interested in talking about science, she will knaw your ears off. He however changed the subject from science to something more general.

"So how are things, around the base I mean? Mother gave you a new team some time ago after you left the Roughnecks roster, and while I've not had a chance to see you in action alongside them in battle."

"It is very big hessle to keep them in line. They are each one e Decepticon efter all!" She generally didn't talk with others but she found herself relaxed around Adam enough to converse on a friendly level. "Von of the new team members, Hotshot, still vill not learn to settle down end beheve himself. He elveys becktalks end gets himself in trouble. It is like heving to vork vith Heatveve egein."

Adam laughs quietly, "I'm sure you'll sort that out! So how is your new charge going? What is his name? Starscream, I think?"

Freya just smiles to herself and thinks about what her charge has been up to lately. "Not much I suppose? I em not heppy I em needing to leave bese todey to meke reports on your work, but I vill heve to trust my team to teke cere of business should Starscream prove to be e problem on site."

On Earth, Starscream had awoken from being offline, and had gotten up rather groggily. When his optics finally came into focus, he could see his restraint collar on the ground, still electrified from being severely shorted out from something. He noticed how small it was, and then looked at his hands. He gleamed at his mecha hands.

Earlier in the week he had gotten on the wrong side of Freefall and she had locked him in his quarters to teach him a lesson.

"I only wish you were here now Freefall. I would certainly teach you a lesson about who is the more superior mechanoid." Comments Starscream angrily.

He tried to look at the rest of himself but he couldn't, at least not completely and so found a mirrored surface instead.

He thought upon seeing his new robot mode, _'Whoever would have thought that I could be even more handsome now than what I was before?' _He laughed out loud, and then turned to the door. In an his offline state, the power surge that had coursed through his system, had involuntarily reformatted his alt mode to something different in appearance to what he was used to seeing.

"All this time, and all I had to do was wait for this!" he laughs to himself, 'Figures!" as he left his quarters to find a way off of the base.

Having arrived at Port Angeles Military Base, both Adam and Freya got out of Roadshow and were escorted by the waiting soldiers to the area where the project was being carried out in well guarded hangars.

Adam noticed the absence of the EDC representatives and queried one of the soldiers.

"You will be told the reason for their absence inside Sir. But I do believe the representatives from the EDC will join you in time. They were waylaid at another military base and will be a few more hours."

Adam was none too surprised at this. It happened often with clients when he had business dealings at Drake Corp. He was not one to enjoy waiting, and when the soldiers had left them he asks Freya, "Perhaps we should go and meet the project protectors." He says slightly amused. "And my other guests should be arriving here soon."

Freya only nodded. She was familiar with Adam's undercover operatives working here at the base to protect the project from being taken over completely by the military, keeping an eye on things as Adam could not be there on the military base 24-7. These operatives were also taking part in the construction process of the battle mechanoid units.

As they ventured down the facility's hallways they came across a couple of these operatives and accompanied them to another room to talk business.

"Greetings Comrede Irons." Comments Freya.

Henry Irons isn't a very big fan of Freefall's but he does the gentlemanly thing and responds politely, tipping his baseball cap, "Howdy ma'am." He turns and talks to Adam, "Mr Drake."

"Hello Henry! How's things?" he asks.

Freya settles herself on the couch in this sitting room and begins typing things into her palm PC unit.

"Things 'ere 'avn't been quiet. Just this week we were caught off guard by a spah from tha outsahde. Wouldna happened if Pete were 'ere. He's bett'r at this team leader stuff than ah am an' ah made one little mistake that may have cost us the whole project. If ah was better then we wouldn't 'ave been hacked…" Henry was exasperated.

Adam was slightly worried about the apparent attack, "What were they after? Do you know?"

"Ah had Dragon Valley Base run a diagnostic. He was prob'ly after the project blueprints. Tha humans here don't have the tech that we 'ave at Dragon Valley at least, that's the surmahse they came up with." He pauses, he sees Freya typing down everything, and he grimaces and then continues, "DVB came back with ah name, ah one Lucius Mitchell. Don't know what he got but…" He notices the look of recognition on Adam's face at the mention of the name, "You know tha name?"

Adam smiles, "Yes." He pauses and looks up at Henry, then around to his companion, who had been keeping quiet until now. "Right now he's of very little concern to me."

"I tol' you amigo; you should've put more buffers up around the computer systems to protect it." Whines Julio in his Spanish accent. This was the other person that was with Henry, his team mate. Julio Fernandez had kept quiet till now because Henry had asked him not to complain but he couldn't help himself. He had to say something.

"Ah would've, but programmin' ain't mah thing! It's weapons ahm good at." comments Henry.

"Gentlemen, please. Don't worry about what Lucius Mitchell has done." Adam cut in. "I'll take care of it from here. I already went ahead and made a dummy program at the start to protect the core system from infiltration before we even started building anything, so the system is fine. I will check it out just in case. The barrier around the core system is interlaced with several different Deltronian tech programs, very heavily encrypted. In between all the data streams I have programmed other data that is unrelated to our project here right now, and it's layered with all sorts of encrypted data and booby traps. For this Mitchell to get the blueprints of my battle units, he'd have to go through all of that to get them.

"While I don't trust the military's protection grid, I do trust my own. Which is why I insisted on an independent system from the base's military protection barriers for the computers they let us use."

"All that Mr Mitchell would have gotten away with would be blueprints for one of the US military's old transformer projects that went nowhere. Let Mitchell give those plans to Holmes like he's most likely been paid to." Interjects Adam.

"Holmes? As in Micheal Holmes, your rival? The one who is CEO of Evo Corp?" questions Julio.

"The very same." States Adam. "Holmes has had that tech savvy spy Mitchell on my tail for years now, and what I've just said about him is his standard M.O. Up until now I've managed to keep him away from me and out of my PC systems and out of my private life as the world doesn't need to know about that.

"But this man is a genius with anything technological. I don't know how he does it. Whether he is as brilliant as his reputation or he is using some technological device or something. We will never know unless we get hold of him and ask.

"Only Holmes seems to know where he lives and how to contact him. We've been unsuccessful in capturing him thus far. Interpol hired Heatwave's group to try and track him down some years ago, but he's too well connected and disappeared like a shadow every time they tried.

"I can only say that if Holmes has Mitchell on the case, then we'll have to watch our own backs as well as the ones around us who aren't affiliated with Ella's group, or there will be trouble.

"Holmes is quite serious about taking us out by any means. Him and that 'anti robots' thing of his. We'll have to get this project up and running as soon as we can."

"By we, you mean us? As usual! Or the humans here?" asks Julio. "I'm not stretching my neck out for them again. I died here on their damn planet once before and I'm not keen on dying for them again, human mech or otherwise."

"Freya looks up from typing her report, "Ve know very vell how much you dislike this plenet, Julio. You do not hesitete to remind us all of time. If ve could send you to Delta system on permanent basis then ve would send you there. Then ve vould not heve to listen to you vhine all of time, da?"

Julio was about to get up and do something but Henry insists he lets it go.

"Fortunately yer of use ta us here on Earth old buddy, so fer now we need ta work together with Adam on this 'till we can go back to our real home." Henry was up on his feet. He had come up behind Julio while he was talking and placed his hand on his friend's shoulder for his comfort.

"It don' make me feel any better about bein' on this mud ball of a planet."

"Yeah I know." responds Henry.

Adam waits for Henry to finish a short conversation with Julio. Julio leaves and he is able to talk. "Henry? I know Peter isn't here right now and I have faith in you to get done what needs to be done. Call in Ray, Jack', Billy and Brian." He takes a sheet of plass paper from Freya. A clear sheet of plastic like paper with black type printed on it, and hands it to Henry. "This should provide you with all the necessary information for now to do what needs to be done. The quicker we get this done the better. We may need those battle units sooner rather than later. I've got a feeling that something is on the horizon."

Henry turns to leave but Adam stops him, "Oh and Henry? I've got two more operatives that mother let me use. Two of Freefall's soldiers I do believe. You will probably recognize them by their voices, so don't go starting any fights ok."

"Ah don' lahke tha sound o' that." Henry shrugs, "But hey whatever ya need to do tah help us Adam we'll listen."

"They're here for extra security, nothing else." Responds Adam

The week had been rather quick for the students of Port Angeles High school and now they all had time to relax and think about what to do for the weekend.

Out in the parking lot, Laura was with her friends. Christine was explaining to some younger students, admiring her car that she didn't drive. It drove itself.

"You see we aren't legally able to drive till we are 18 in this country, but we are allowed to be accompanied by an IQ-AI smart car unit."

"What's that?" asks one of the freshmen with her. She had started talking to some kids that were here with their parents waiting for their older brother to show up. And their parents didn't mind Christine keeping them entertained with conversation.

"Well a smart car is one that can drive itself."

"So it's like a transformer?"

"No not really. They can't transform and they are more like a programmed computer than actually having a personality. Although you can get real expensive ones that have personalities, that talk too."

"Kind of like a pet that does what you want and drives where you tell it then?" asks the other teen.

"Exactly!"

"Oh yeah! I've heard of those." Speaks up one of the youngsters.

"Have you called it anything? I mean if it is a pet, you gotta name it right?"

Yeah, well, I prefer to think of my car as a she. I have this favourite old Stephen King Movie called Christine and I like the car from that movie so much…"

"Coz it's your name right?" interrupts the first teen.

"Yeah it is." She replied, giggling slightly. "And I like the movie so much; I named her She Devil, because I've already got the name Christine. I would be confusing to have both of us called that now wouldn't it."

Both of the young teens were enjoying their talk with Laura's friend. However they were unaware that they were both the younger siblings of one person who hated them and their group.

"Hey you two, get away from her! You'll end up catching something nasty and dropping dead, and then I'll have to bury you both." snarled their older brother.

The two kids looked at each other then one screams out, "Will not!" and then gets in the car where his mother was waiting.

"C'mon Roselyn!" Calls the mother to the other young teen, "Time to go." The second child quickly waves and goes to the car, where her two older brothers were waiting also.

Christine and the others vaguely watch the car leave before turning back to their own business. They were huddled around between Robert's van and Christine's Plymouth Fury.

"Yeah so what are we doin' for the weekend?" asks Robert.

Ally and Krysta had just shown up. And Robert continues. "We could crash out at my place and install these new things I got for my van. Laura's Aunt said they'd work like giving the car a personality and helps them talk too."

"That'd be fun!" comments Ryan. And the two of them strike up a conversation based around tech related subjects and the girls find something else to talk about.

"How about we go up to the mountain for the weekend? We can camp out and all!" asks Krysta. "I can have all my stuff ready real quick. I was supposed to go with Heather this weekend, but she opted out, had work to do. My niece, Lita is in town. I know she'd love to join us if she has time. And she has this truck that's better than an IQ system. It doesn't talk much but it's got a personality component that you can interact with."

Christine looks at Laura and Ally. Then she looks around to Aelya who had just joined the group. Her boyfriend Adrian had joined them also but had gone straight over to the boys when he heard the tech talk. "I guess we could. We've got a bigger group than usual this year. My dad might let me borrow the RV and Lita might bring her truck if she's able to come along."

"This all sounds so cool. I've never been camping before. Usually my dad tries not to let me out of his sight."

"Then let's go camping. It'll be an experience for you Ally." She turns to Aelya, "What about you?"

"Maybe! I'll see what Adrian wants to do." She responds.

Laura turns her attention to the boys who were huddled and talking by Roberts van and says, "We've decided to go camping up on Dragon Mountain and we don't care what you boys will do for the weekend."

"Is your dad going to let us use the RV again Christine?" asks Ryan. "That thing's got everything, satellite TV, schmick audio and visual systems, shower, toilet, fridge, stove, all the modern conveniences. I love it!"

"I'm sure he will. I'll just call and check. If he says yes then we had all better go and get ready so we can get to our spot on the mountain in a couple of hours." She makes the call and her father agrees. He'd figured the kids would want the RV for the long weekend, Monday being a public holiday with no school, so he went and pre packed the van already for them to use. "Cool Dad thanks!" comments Christine as she hangs up her cell phone. "Dad already packed it for us. It's ready to go now if we want!"

"Then we'd better get going then."

"We'll go too!" says Aelya clutching Adrian's arm.

They all get into gear to meet up at Christine's house later to go to Dragon Mountain for camping for that long weekend.

At Port Angeles Military Base, Adam had gotten tired of waiting for the EDC delegates to arrive, so he'd changed into a work shirt and started helping the undercover Team Excelsior to build the machines along with all the military scientists.

He looked around. Everyone was busy. Ray and Jackson were busy talking over technical data with several scientists about mechanical structure off to one side. Julio, Brian and Henry were making some technical adjustments to one unit, next to the one he was working on. He couldn't see Billy anywhere though._ 'Probably in the test room testing out the working unit'_, he thought. _'Who else was missing? Oh yes Peter, but he's off world.'_

Adam was lost in thought busily working on the mechanics of this mechanoids inner system. He didn't see his other two operatives walk in. But they didn't escape Freya's attention, considering they were from her team, the Dark Knights.

"Varren, Teylor!" Freya puts her tools away and droops down off of the mechanoids chassis to greet them. "You vere successful et errand I hed you do?" she asks.

Warren Skylar was the brassy one of the two. Taylor Corso was the quiet studious one, and also older than Warren. Both were not as they seemed, and were well aware of their true identities, despite being born as humans and having fully prosthetic Cybernetic bodies now. They were better known to most as Skywarp and Thundercracker respectively. Two former and very well known Decepticon soldiers. But many did not know they were and others would have thought them long dead, even Team Excelsior, as the primary members of that team were also reincarnated individuals with the same origins as the two Decepticons.

"Yeah, sure we got it!" comments Warren. "It was a slagging bugger to get in and out of the place, but we got the stuff. Would we ever fail at acquiring the stuff for you boss lady?" He hands over a data pad to her containing the data she had requested. Freya wasn't too impressed, Warren was always making passes at her and she didn't appreciate it, she'd given up telling him to stop a long time ago.

Freya is somewhat impressed by Warren's actions. Even though these two had fealty to Megatron in the past, they were now working for her, but for their own purposes and so they didn't often work with her main group all the time.

Both had been outcasts for most of their lives from everyone around them. It had made Warren somewhat cynical and resentful towards others but still as arrogant and obnoxious as ever, and Taylor a bit spiritualistic. But both had accepted who they really were straight away when Ella had shown them, it had all made sense to them. They had not even blinked or faltered once when she had told them. Like it was an affirmation of what they already knew.

"Anyway I'm off back to base for a tune up. That place gave me the creeps. You comin' TC? Perhaps we can go taunt Starscream again eh?" They both start to walk out of the hanger.

'Vait." She calls to them. Freya was not able to look at the data as yet that Warren had given her as her communications unit had started buzzing. "This is Freya, go ahead."

'_Boss lady, we have a problem? I don't know what happened or even how it did but we are facing off with Starscream here on the base.'_

"One moment." Freya calls to Warren and Taylor. "A moment please you two?" she motions for them to return to where she's standing. When they arrive back she asks Seastriker to continue.

'_He just came out of nowhere! We had all finished doing the work you asked us to and had returned to Air command like we're supposed to do and he showed up causing trouble and off his collar.'_

Freya could hear cursing in the background and recognized ammunition fire from both Bombshell and others. She knew that with Starscream's upgrades he'd be able to fight at her own levels and would now be far superior in strength and speed to any one member of her team and would be a force to be reckoned with. "Get him to stey if you cen, Seastriker. I vill join you soon with Varren and Taylor. Freya out."

The communications unit clicks off and Freya tells the two males to come with her. She apologizes to Adam for having to depart so abruptly and for taking the two new guards also.

He promises to send along the minutes of his meeting with the EDC delegates later.

After having gone to a quiet human free spot of a nearby hangar with an open set of doors before her, Freya transforms. Out of her Biomode and into her large dragon alt mode.

Warren and Taylor follow suit one by one, changing from their human Biomodes to their robot modes, when she takes off at incredible speed from the hangar with her stealth optics activated.

When the three arrive back at the base, it was already too late.

Several of her team sat by the walls in the Air Command runway licking their wounds. She noticed very quickly that Starscream had discovered his rise in power levels and had not bothered to hold back on using them, brutally damaging all of them. He had fought his way out of the base and spared no expense at doing so.

Warblade came racing up. "I found this in his quarters! I thought we'd be able to determine how he got out if we looked around."

She notices his leg wound but disregards it for now. She looks out over the open space of the drop at the end of the runway. It shows the forest area of the Dragon Mountain Reserve. "Hmmm…" she thinks. Bombshell who was pretty beaten up, having been released by Warblade and also Hotshot stands with her, who was online once again. "Scout the forest from sky with your stealth on. There vill be humens in forest, perhaps camping for weekend. We need not bring ettention to Starscream."

Bombshell speaks up, "I want to slag the bastard so bad right now!" she thumps the wall. "He caught us napping and I don't like it."

Switchblade asks, "Even though he's lost his collar due to whatever circumstance, he'll still have his distance co-ordinator working, is that why you're asking father to scout the forest?"

"Da." Answers Freefall.

"The co-ordinator?" asks Skywarp "Ain't that the thing that transforms you back to a Biomode automatically if there is an escapee gets out of the base? Even if the collar is off?" Freefall nods. "So that means if you get us to go trudging around down there we'll have to look for him in his Biomode, which he'll be stuck in. And he'll be vulnerable in too!" Skywarp was grinning, a chance to beat up on the mech who had humiliated for so long as a Decepticon soldier.

"Ve go hunting for him. Now we go!" They all run off to get ready, and she stands by the edge of the end of the runway, grateful that the humans don't know what is really here. The entrance to the runway covered up by a hologram. She could still feel the wind on her faceplate.


	15. Chapter 15 The Campground Capture

In The Beginning

The Campground Capture

Dragon Mountain National Park…

This park is many miles south east of Port Angeles. This same park happens to border much of Ella's Dragon Valley property.

And Dragon Mountain itself happens to be in that park, secretly hiding an airfield inside it. Covered up by holographic projectors and sonic dampeners to hide the incoming and outgoing of the various aircraft that enter and exit the airfield to Ella's secret underground base.

The humans are discouraged to brave the sheer cliff faces and ravines around the entrance of this airfield within a five mile radius of its entrance. Virtually no human is encouraged to go near any of the underground bases secret entrances. They are looked after by security on Dragon Valley Base, but they are also protected by several of Flashdance's animal mechanoids in disguise as normal Earth animals within the forest itself.

One individual, named Teresa Granger is a caretaker of the park's Ranger's office, not far from the entrance road to Ella's property on the south entrance to it. And for this, Ranger is employed to keep anyone out of any part of the park that may lead to any entrances to Ella's secret underground base being discovered.

But she isn't just a Ranger of the park, she is _the_ Ranger. A female Transformer by the same name with a Biomode, masquerading as a human to fulfil her work. Not only as a protector of the national forest she works in, but also employed as a skilled tracker and member of the Roughnecks, Ella's team of mecha to help protect the secret base in Dragon Valley.

But ordinarily she would do this job if she were here. Today she was off world fighting with her fellow femmes of the Roughnecks team and with Ella on Cybertron.

She is one of the very few Deltronian female Transformers, who is a retired soldier and now a civilian, working on Earth under Ella's guidance. She also has family on Earth. Her former partner, Gold Digger, a male Deltronian mechanoid, was her partner. She had suffered a near death on one mission as a soldier and as such, their bond was severed. And like some other Transformers, they both chose to go their separate ways when they fell out of love with each other. She retired as a soldier after that and brought her two offspring, Rockslide, a partner to human cyborg Professor Cassandra Mason, and Rocky's younger sister Landslide, currently a member of Ella's Roughnecks team, with her.

She does have an elder sister. Though she is the more quietly spoken of the two, she has a more stout and controlled composure than her sister does, being that her sister, Quicksand and her family, are travellers, all living and working undercover with Ella abroad. But this weekend, they happened to be on leave and visiting her here at the Ranger Station, as they were staying close by at the base.

Quicksand was here today in Ranger's place, watching over the park doing her job while she was absent. Not too long ago, she had watched a group of young high school kids drive through to one of the camping grounds.

But not long after that, about an hour or so, she had gotten a call from an operative at Dragon Valley Base, from Freefall about an escapee, namely Starscream.

However from the information she had received. He was long gone from the base. She and her family that were here today, including her two offspring and her nephew Rockslide had agreed to help search, but none had seen any aircraft in the area other than the ones they knew from Ella's secret base, and the ones from Port Angeles military base who occasionally flew close but not over head the base.

Earlier on the airstrip inside the mountain…

Starscream had been watching the other fliers on the base for a few hours after he had been set free from the power surge in his system in his quarters earlier.

He knew from watching them on previous occasions that they were employed to attend the airstrip known as Air Command.

He had been able to slip into the weapons depot when most of them had left after their restocking of the armoury and had stocked up on rounds and weapons.

An intensive look at his own weapons showed him he would be unable use them, and he knew that if he was to get out of here in one piece against so many individuals.

He followed some of them upstairs in the base to Air Command Central. He noticed however that not all of them had gone there.

And when he had the chance to, he caught them unawares and took down as many of them as he could, as quickly as possible.

The female triple changer Bombshell looked to be the strongest of the lot that were there, and he decided to take her out first, or at least he tried to.

He had also been fighting with Hotshot and Seastriker. His younger brother Sunstorm, and two others, Switchblade and Warblade, had shown up later.

He had noticed Warblade barking out some orders to the rest and was unable to stop him from getting away as he left the runway area to go somewhere else. _'Most likely to contact others for help,'_ he thought.

By this time he had started to run out of artillery fire. Bombshell and Switchblade, both triple changers, had given him a hard time and evaded most of the shots.

The younger male mechanoid Seastriker had hidden from him and he was unable to stop him from making a radio call to Freefall as he was busy being annoyed by artillery fire from Hotshot and Sunstorm and having his face plate being grounded into the runway by the two femmes.

In a chance of getting free from them he managed to get the runway doors open and jammed it open by shorting the controls before the others could get to it.

He had now run out of ammunition and had managed to take down Hotshot by then.

Sunstorm was continuing to shoot at him but he couldn't be bothered by that now. He had begun to notice the slight damage all their artillery and physical blows had been doing to him. He had felt that same surge go through him when he had blacked out earlier. Wounds healed almost as quickly as they were made and he was now able to fight the femmes one on one after taking Sunstorm down with one powerfully placed punch to his brother's head casing.

The femmes had both backed off slightly after that, watching him warily. They knew he had a power increase, but not knowing how much or in what areas, except for the durability and strength they had already witnessed. They figured if they attacked him both at once they might have a chance of taking him out and holding him down.

Switchblade had grabbed herself a set of manacles to clasp on him once they captured him. But unfortunately, having taken him on, two on one, the femmes were caught off guard by his adaptation of the situation. He was stronger than they thought he was and quickly dispatched both of them.

"What a pity that you females are so weak and cannot defeat a superior mechanoid such as myself!" he stated with air of arrogance about his new abilities. He clasped one manacle each on the femme's wrists after threading the connecting chain through a Psion piping on the wall, knowing they would not be able to break it and bother him anymore.

Having defeated the defending mechanoids with ease he stayed around to gloat about his accomplishment, Bombshell noticed. But to add further insult to injury in their defeat he proceeded to torture the two femmes somewhat to rub their defeat in.

Bombshell was barely able to move and was very sore from the battering she had been dealt by Starscream's new strength.

Her team mate Switchblade was already offline on the floor and Starscream still had his sites on Bombshell's barely online and beaten body shell.

"It doesn't take much to prove how fragile your mortality is now does it?" he smirked at her. Her face was covered in mech fluids and he found himself shaking his hand after some of it dribbled onto it when he put his hand under her chin to lift her face up to talk to her.

"Slag off, flyboy!" she spat angrily. "When I get loose I'm going to rearrange your faceplate so badly, no mech will recognize you ever again!"

"In your current state I sincerely doubt that!" he responded confidently. "But so good to talk to such a feisty femme con my dear, now I have to be going."

With that he casually walked over to the runway exit and took off in his robot form.

Bombshell yelled some expletives after his departure but they fell on deaf audios until Freefall and her entourage arrived.

In the campgrounds down from the mountains, Laura and her friends were setting up their camp gear.

There was enough room for all of them in the large camper van that Christine's father had provided but they had brought some equipment that could only be set up outside.

The boys had quickly noted that Christine's father had satellite TV and the net set up in the van's computer system and were all crowded around the TV playing a game along with Aelya.

Ally, Krysta and her Aunt Lita, who had been able to make it having been asked to return to Earth after leaving Cybertron with weapons supplies for the battle there a few days ago, were all setting up some chairs and were conversing while they were at it.

Christine and Laura, being the most familiar with the woods, had wandered off to collect some firewood from the surrounding area for the fireplace.

Cybertron…

The battles were still raging on everywhere.

One unfortunate group of Autobots had been worn down by overwhelming Dominion Forces and had been captured. They were currently being held by some Decepticons headed by Astrotrain, behind their forces lines, not too far south of Iacon.

The majority of Autobot forces that were still able to fight, had done what they could to gather up their offline comrades and get them back to Iacon for repairs. Only a few dozen or so soldiers still remained to fight Galvatron and Decellion. This did not include Ella or her team. Unfortunately, these mech's had been caught trying to get back home.

Gears, Mirage, who was currently offline, Jazz, Cliffjumper, and Bumblebee were the ones who had been captured. They were unaware that they were currently being rescued by Vanguard and a few others. They had already started to formulate their own escape plan, despite the fact they were manacled with their hands all chained together.

But unfortunately they were not being quiet enough, and Astrotrain who was guarding them, heard them and made his remark, "Quiet Autobot!" he slapped Cliffjumper clear across the faceplate and gloated with his comrades laughing at Cliffjumper's treatment from behind Astrotrain.

"Why I orta'!" growls Cliffjumper as Jazz and Bumblebee attempt to try and hold him back.

"Easy little buddy! He ain't worth it." Says Jazz quietly. "help will come, don' ya worry 'bout that."

Cliffjumper listens to reason and calms down.

"You okay Cliff'?" asks Bumblebee.

"Yeah I'm just fine 'Bee." Says Cliffjumper as he wipes the fluid from the corner of his mouth. All the while their captors continue to laugh at the Autobots. "They'll get theirs when we get loose." He says quietly.

"Sorry Autobot I didn't hear that? Speak up slave!" Taunts Ramjet who had just joined them.

Jazz had to hold their friend back even more at that remark.

"What's the matter dog? Chain not long enough!" remarks Astrotrain. This remark had launched the Decepticons present into a fit of hysterical humour as the Autobots were currently unable to fight back to do anything and they knew it.

"You know we'll probably go offline permanently here," whines Gears.

Bumblebee frustrated with the situation snaps at his comrade, "Oh shut up Gears! Your whining isn't helping." He sits down on his own by the back wall of the cell the Decepticons had them holed up in.

Outside their hideaway, Ranger, Vanguard, and the twins, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, had gathered together for a rescue mission.

Vanguard had found herself a quiet spot to observe their enemy on the levels below them. She had indicated to the others present to do the same. But they weren't hidden for long.

Sideswipe accidentally trips up a piece of scrap metal and alerts the Decepticons to their presence, but only the twins are sited.

"What was that?" asks Ramjet.

"How in the slagging pit should I know?" questions Thrust.

"Up there?" yells Astrotrain, "It's those twins. Thrust stay here. Ramjet follow me." They both follow the closest path they can find upstairs to where the twins are.

"Nice going dimwit! Now I'll probably get my paint scratched because of your clumsiness!" comments Sunstreaker.

"I don't see the big deal Sunny. At least they're coming to us now." Snickers Sideswipe.

"Yeah whatever." replies Sunstreaker dryly, "But you're still an idiot."

Elsewhere Vanguard sighed and shook her head, _'These two are still the same!'_ She had to smile, she missed being in battle with her old comrades and the antics of the twins amused her. She makes visual contact with Ranger and indicates its time for an attack on the ones left below.

When Astrotrain and Ramjet had become noticeably occupied as a distraction with the twins she and Ranger quietly made their way down to the others.

Down below, Thrust was noticeably nervous about being left alone with these Autobots, but he was relieved he didn't have to go fight the twins, _'Less dents in my chassis at least.'_ he thinks.

Jazz notices his nervousness at first, sees Vanguard sneaking up quietly and comments confidently, "Awww...whattsamatta Thrust? You wanna join your buddies up there?" he points, having seen the twins fight by now along with his online comrades, "You know they don't stand a chance against those two!" he smirks, deliberately taunting the lone Decepticon.

Thrust turns to face Jazz, "Shut up you!" He is distracted long enough by Jazz smiling and laughing at him for Vanguard to come up behind him.

"Stop laughing!" says Thrust angrily, "I said shut up now!" He lifts an arm to bring down on Jazz to injure him, when it is grabbed by Ranger out of nowhere.

"Now, now, there'll be none of that today!" he muses.

While he has his attention on Ranger, he talks, "Is this all you got Autobots, sending this measly group to rescue you, so pathetic!" he proclaims.

"Who's pathetic?" asks Vanguard amused, "She was just a distraction!" Thrust hears Vanguard and turns to her direction, "So I could do this." She quickly whacks Thrust over the head with the butt of her electric hammer, which is still quietly humming away.

Ranger wasn't terribly impressed with her use of methods, being more pacifistic herself, but she tolerates it for the sake of rescuing their new friends, "Well it worked didn't it, and besides I didn't feel like wasting the energy in my hammer on his meagre brain chips anyhow."

This comment got a laugh out of Cliffjumper when they were in the midst of setting their comrades free.

Just as Ranger is putting Mirage up on her shoulder plates Thrust starts to twitch and unceremoniously gets Ramjet thrown on top of him, followed shortly by Astrotrain. And then the twins descend to the party below. All three groan in pain.

"So are we too late for the buffet?" muses Sideswipe. Sunstreaker lifts a brow in response to his brother's comment and Vanguard can't help but laugh loudly.

"You haven't lost your comedic touch at all have you Sides'!" says Vanguard still trying hard to stop laughing.

"Nope!" he smiles devilishly.

"C'mon everyone, let's go we've gotta get Mirage back to Iacon for repairs and then help everyone else finish off the rest of the cons." Comments Ranger.

The rest of them were making their way out of this secluded spot. Vanguard picks up the offline Astrotrain and it gets noticed by Cliffjumper, "Why you doin' that for? Just leave the slagger here!"

"Ella might want a trophy, she likes collecting Decep' triple changers!" responds Vanguard.

Cliffjumper doesn't argue and they all continue out of the area and back to the battle.

Starscream had crashed very badly into some pine trees in Dragon Mountain forest. He didn't feel so invincible now. And he wondered what had happened. He was almost free.

Not long after he had taken off in his robot at the runway from Dragon Mountain Base, some kind of other programming had taken over and switched his form from robot back to his Biomode.

At the time he had been very high up into the air and the fall as a human had been very daunting, not to mention rather embarrassing for him. He had not realised as yet that while in a Biomode one can utilise the same skills as he had in his robot or alt mode. But seeing as he didn't know this he lay bruised and battered on the floor of the forest, instead of being able to use automatic flight skills.

It was some time before he awoke and felt all the bruises he had received from his fall. His healing ability had taken advantage of his offline status and had already taken care of his more serious injuries.

'_Damn human form, slagging fleshlings and this stupid Biomode!' _he curses to himself quietly as he sits back down and cycles his air vents to breathe.

He knew only basic knowledge of human anatomy and understood his Biomode was fairly human now as far as he knew, full of synthetic cybernetic tissue, mimicking a human form. At least that's what he had read in his file, that Ella had written about him, one that he had been able to hack into and read while on the base.

He had seen that different mechanoids had been given different levels to which their Biomodes could operate. Level 1 Biomodes were just synthetic armoured flesh over a mechanoid frame, like his old Pretender shell. Level 2 ones were a little more organic over the skin and allowed for damage like the humans could be harmed, a combination of technological and organic. He knew there was a level three but he was only listed as level two in the report bout himself that he had read. But there was one advantage, his healing ability worked in this form also, still he hurt like the pits though.

Oh how he hated this. He was wracked with pain. Though he could handle the pain, it still hurt when he moved, considering his legs and one of his arms were covered in bruises and his healing was slower since he came online again.

And as much as he was trying to push himself to get away from the base, he figured that someone knew what had happened to him and would come looking. He looked around the area as best he could and started to put together a battle plan in case such a situation would arise.

Fondly enough, he was not too far from where Laura and all their friends were camping. Upon realising that there were likely hostages nearby, he smirked to himself.

Freefall had left Switchblade, Hotshot and Seastriker back at the base as they had been damaged the most. They were being seen to by Heartia in medical as no other medics for them were available on the base right now.

The time it would have taken for them to be prepared and join her in the hunt for Starscream would have given him too much of a head start. And so she had quickly taken along Warblade, for scouting from the air, with Thundercracker and Skywarp for both air and ground crew.

After flying down to the forest grounds in Warblade, they alighted and went straight for the Ranger Station.

"How are we going to go about this Freefall?" asks Quicksand.

"Yes and how can we help?" asks her nephew in a Japanese accent. Both of them as well as the other mech's present all in Biomodes, disguised as ordinary humans.

Freefall first looks at Quicksand then at the other mechanoids behind her, "No need to get involved. This is our problem." She looks at Quicksand, "Eny reports of injured people in forest? Starscream would heve fell long vey end been injured?"

"No. There hasn't been one report." Quicksand replies.

Freefall humphs and turns to leave still in her Biomode, not bothering to switch to her robotic mode at all. She had asked Warblade to keep sweeping the area and keep her apprised of any new information.

"Although there is a group of kids from around the area currently camping here. They might get to him first if you don't. If you want I can go ahead and keep an optic or two on them?" Mentions another mech called Sand Trap.

Freefall nods to acknowledge the information. She motions to the rest of her team to follow her to a wall with a topographical map of the area. They all discuss between themselves a plan of attack in case they need to. The whole forest was riddled with underground caverns from old volcanic activity from days gone past, as well as gullies and small creeks were anyone wishing to evade capture could easily by hiding their tracks.

"What about us?" asks Sand Bank, Sand Trap's brother.

"I need you to stay here momentarily." She pauses, "If any humans come along, you know what to do?" Quicksand and her partner Dunerunner nod to each other and she join Freefall at the door ready to leave.

"Damn that means we gotta sit here and do nothing! Great holiday so far!" whines Sand Trap, Sand Bank agrees. Both of the mech's are only young and new to life on Earth, but being that they are old enough to be left alone and defend themselves, they also listen to their parents; they stay and do not object to being left behind at the Ranger Station.

As Freefall leaves the office she discusses a search plan with her two accomplices, as well as Quicksand, Dunerunner and Rockslide.

To the west of Iacon…

Sound Track and Flashdance, who had just been reunited with her twin, were dancing up a storm in the form of attack patterns and fighting techniques against their enemies. Sound Track had decided an alternative tactic against the Destrons plaguing the Iacon base. She had turned up her stereo and invited her sister to join her in some fun. While they were dancing, they were attacking and taking out Destrons at the same time.

Some who were looking on didn't understand the tactic till alter. They both used the seemingly passive activity to lure the Destrons in. Some of the Destrons were fooled and did attack them while they were dancing. But the twins were using their dance moves to passively attack and dispose of them.

While Flashdance wasn't too happy about having to fight, she did her bit and outdid Sound Track in the dancing department, which thoroughly impressed Jazz and Blaster, who were fighting nearby, trying to employ a similar tactic while moving around to Sound Track's stereo sound.

When Sound Track had noticed she'd drawn in a fair amount of Destrons, she let out a call to the other Autobots, "Fahre in thah hole!" To which every Autobot who heard her, ducked for cover, as she had mentioned to them earlier in case she had had to use a particular attack of hers for defence. And she let loose with a powerful sonic blast that flattened everything that it hit, including the Destrons.

Exasperated Jazz comments after getting up again, "So I wonder if there is going to be an end to these seemingly endless supply of mechanoids these Dominion use or what?!"

"Who cares!" comments Sideswipe who had begun fighting a new wave of Destrons close by, "This is fun!"

I'll second that!" comments an equally amused Sunstreaker. Both were revelling in the fighting completely.

Jazz can't help but laugh.

Freefall was quite accustomed to using her normal abilities in her Biomode, as were the mechs with her. While the other three civilian mech's were far out ahead scouting for any crash areas, Warren and Taylor had flown on ahead, Warren happy that he would perhaps be able to get some of his own back on Starscream. Freefall had found herself a rise and was surveying the area when she got a call.

'_Dunerunner to Freefall.'_

"Go ehead." answers Freefall.

'_I found a decidedly distinct trail of blood over my way. Preliminary pathological analysis indicates it is a mix of both Cybertronian fuel and synthetic human blood.'_

"Vhich vay does it lead?"

'_I am currently sending you my position.'_

"I will transfer the co-ordinetes to the others. Ve vill join you there shortly."

'_Understood. Dune' out.' _She had worked with Dunerunner before, both he and his partner were ex military, special forces mechanoids and knew the drill when it came to working with Ella's teams.

Laura had been sitting alone by the fire when she noticed the static. She had cybernetic hearing and could sometimes pick up radio signals. In this instance it had been static caused by the conversation between Dunerunner and Freefall. She had been taught that static meant secure communications lines and that she should be wary.

She took her scanners and looked around the area, unknown that she was already being watched.

In the distance Starscream was using his scanners on the encampment of younger humans. But the one on her own by the fire interested him.

Laura didn't have her shields up that prevented others from doing scans of her and discovering what she wreally was. She figured being out here ion the forest camping with her friends that there was no need. But when she heard the static she immediately put up her shields.

That wasn't quick enough. Starscream had already gotten a detailed scan of her with his own scanners. He saw that she wasn't like the other mecha on Ella's base. Although she had a techno - organic composition, he surmised she had obviously been used to employ other means of mechanisation as her system as a working balance of both mechanical and biological parts.

She is taken by surprise when she is grabbed from behind by Starscream and dragged off before she could retaliate and yell to her friends for help.

She had been hit across the back of the head with a rock and felt some blood there when she touched the spot and winced. Then she looked up and realised who was with her. "You?!" she exclaimed, "But you're supposed to be imprisoned on the base!"

"Not anymore it seems." He smirks.

She groans and tried to get up but sees that she ahs been tied and tries to get free.

"I wouldn't bother girl. You are my insurance policy if the others try to take me back to the base."

'_Oh great!'_ sighs Laura, _'kidnapped by a maniac. He must be the reason the ones from the base are out in the forest.'_

"They will not want to harm one of their own mechanoids, you see." He gloats revelling in his somewhat brilliant plan. "I trade you for my freedom to stop them from hunting me and I get out of here."

Laura couldn't look up at him, 'Looks like he scanned my systems before I put up my shields. I wonder how long he had been watching me.'

Christine, Ally and Lita come out to the fire.

"Yo Laura, we're ready for dinner!" yells Christine.

Ally notices the unattended cooking food and immediately gets worried, "Where's Laura.

Lita responds, "It's not like her to take off and leave stuff behind like this, something must have happened. Then she spies Warblade up above roaming the area looking for something, he was very well hidden using his stealth optics at night to hide, but she could see right through any light based manipulative technology.

"You two stay here," she cautions Ally and Christine, "I've gotta do some thing." And she promptly takes off to get closer to Warblade to see what's going on.

At Iacon, Optimus Prime has ordered all the forces still functional to fall back to Headquarters. They have become vastly outnumbered, despite the fact that Ella and her fight with Death Strike is still going on rather fervently outside. Most of the fighting had now become centred around Iacon, so many of them didn't have far to go at all to get back home. The ones that were still functional that is.

Starscream had begun to notice that he was being surrounded by those who were hunting for him.

He looked down at his captive and then picked her up and started running. He noticed that it didn't take much effort.

Then it came to him. He wondered what other abilities he was able to use while in this form and wanted to test them out. But not here, not with his hostage and not while he was so close to getting free.

That was when he was surprised by Freefall.

"Ve vill teke the girl now Starscream."

Laura noticed that Lita was with this group surrounding Starscream, "Lita!" calls out Laura.

But when she tries to take a step towards the tied up girl, Starscream grabs Laura and threatens them, "One more step and I break her neck. Back off. Let me go free and the girl is yours." He demands.

Freefall raises her brow. She felt a power level. She had asked Sunstorm not to come, but all a sudden he flies through the night air and spears his brother in the mid section. Knocking Laura free and allowing her to be grabbed by Lita and taken into a protected spot.

"It's about to get a little hairy here, let's go back to the site, eh?"

Laura looks to the others here in the clearing and sees that Lita was right and she comments, "Ok."

Not long after they leave is when it starts.

"Uuughh" groaned Starscream as he started to come to after being speared by his brother. He noticed that Sunstorm, while in a Biomode was a spitting image of himself, and he was also floating. He just smirks and realises his suspicions about having the same abilities while in his Biomode was right. "Dear brother, you are as annoying as ever, always getting in my way." Sunstorm remains quiet rather than responding to his brother's taunts.

He moves to get up and face the bunch, ready to attack if need be. Skywarp recognized his stance. "Not a good idea to move 'Screamer, you move, we get to scrap you. Tha boss lady didn't say what condition we had to drag your sorry aft back to the base in, and I for one am going to enjoy myself." He cracks the knuckles in his human hands.

"As if you could ever best me you sorry excuse for a second rate seeker! There was a reason why I was the Air Commander."

"Speak for yourself." Retorts Thundercracker. "I could've done a better job than you any day."

Freefall had since let her company leave to return to the Ranger Station. Once she had found a fresh trail from Starscream, she asked them to go and not get involved, thanking them for their help. But here and now she was listening to these old comrades converse and was fully prepared to let Skywarp have his way. As long as he was able to survive the beating, Ella would not worry about his condition.

Starscream glares at Freefall for a moment, but curses himself for taking his attention from the three former seekers now before him all in Biomodes. It took only a moment for the three of them to attack Starscream at once.

Freefall didn't bother to interfere, only looking on as Starscream was eventually subdues and captured again


	16. Chapter 16 Questions To Be Answered

In The Beginning

Questions To Be Answered

At Iacon's landing pad on Cybertron, two ancient enemies came face to face, one was named Death Strike, and the other was named Bright Star. Around them, the Destrons and Decepticons, or what was left of them, had rounded up most of the Autobots, keeping them in and around Iacon Central Command.

The Autobots had no choice but to submit to the culling as they were vastly outnumbered, but they fought for their place valiantly.

The ancient looking white mechanoid dragon turned towards the Destron and stated, "You are not welcome here, Devillion, leave now or suffer the consequences."

Death Strike, under the control of Decellion, had most of her army still fighting with her. Turning to face the white form, she replied, "I go where I want to go." She then began to attack the other mechanoid. "I will not leave until I have what is rightfully mine!"

Decellion could not be bothered by the vocalisations of her old enemy. She and she alone was the superior one and she wanted to exterminate this nuisance and get back to what she needed to do.

She had come here to this planet to recover an ancient weapon. And had been sorely disappointed when she had not found it.

She realised by now that Galvatron would know about her actions through the spying of his loyal pet Laserbeak, whom had followed her throughout her wanderings on Cybertron looking for the weapon.

Not far off, though she was busy fighting this mechanoid before her, she could see the Decepticon warship they arrived here in, land on the planet. She was unsure as to why it had landed. Perhaps Galvatron thought the battle was in hand and already won, a reason why he was so arrogant to land a battleship here on the planet and make it vulnerable.

'_It was less vulnerable, and safer in orbit.'_ She thought. But then she started to understand why.

Three groups of Decepticon warriors, who had been up until now, separated on the battlefield by the combined efforts of the Autobots, had come together. She noted that it was the ones Galvatron referred to as Menasor, Bruticus and Devastator.

With an unholy smirk on her face, she continued fighting, knowing that if the Autobots were wiped out now, in this fight, then she would be free to search for the Power Matrice she had come here to find.

It had not occurred to her as yet that even just one of the items she was searching for was right in front of her, possessed by three individuals, at separate points on the battlefield around Iacon. Two of them knew to keep their power down so their Matrices wouldn't be detected, but it wouldn't be long before they reared their powerful heads, the Matrices almost always did at times like this, and always, as Sound Track knew it did, was when she or one of the other bearers were around someone like Ella.

Jazz looked up to see the new mechs, and commented, "Did I miss something? Where'd they come from?"

Cliffjumper, right next to him, stated, "Who cares? At least someone's keeping that black monster at bay!" He paused and glanced over at the white mechanoid that was fighting Death Strike. He also pointed towards Devastator and the other two gestalts. "Now who's gonna keep those monsters in line?"

At that moment and elsewhere, the Aerialbots had seen the Constructicons form into Devastator, and had flown into the fight from not too far off, forming into Superion. The battle between the two gestalts, however, was beginning to cause some ground shaking. The fact that their other Gestalt, Computron, all the team members, were still in one piece and on the battlefield and went to join Superion to fight the three Decepticon Gestalts.

But the battle between them was uneven and likely to end nastily for all the Autobots involved.

For what had seemed like days for Sunstar, this little fight with Six Shot had only been several vorns by Cybertronian time.

She had been kept here in this fight when she did not want to be. But she had no choice, for her, abandoning an unfinished fight was dishonourable. She knew she was also needed elsewhere. Being a medic, the impulse to run to the side of the injured mechs around her was second nature. But she was also a warrior, a six changer like the Decepticon in front of her was.

Even though she had a nuclear fusion generator for a power core, it did not make her any less weary of the battle she no longer wanted to fight. Her honour however demanded she finish it properly. She wasn't about to go and take a cheap shot at her opponent just to do so either. She was in it till he surrendered or was terminated.

During the fight she fought long and hard to keep that particular beastial part of her suppressed so she wouldn't get out of control, like her sister always did, their darker half.

She remembered the reason she had signed up for Ella's little outfit of soldiers after she had been rescued from incarceration by the Dominion Army. It was a short period of time she had been imprisoned on one of their occupied planets.

She did not cope with the rehabilitation too well. They had experimented on her and messed up her head and her body and she was never the same after that. The medics and scientists back home even went so far as to clone her and dump all the problematic programming she could no longer digest into another body. The only problem was, she was a very particular type of mech. Upon sensing this other life force like her own, upon its online status being activated, a connection happened between her mind and the new mechanoid. As soon as she was aware of it, it was already too late. Her dark side wasn't completely out of her system. Due to the connection with the other twin, Midnight they had called her; she was still capable of very bad things and she fought very hard with herself not to let her twin take control through there inadvertent bond. She wasn't going to submit, or allow herself to indulge in the dark natured connection between them.

She would keep on fighting to the death if need be, while she watched sadly as the Decepticon would slowly but surely sacrifice his life for the fight. As his nobility was not too different from her own.

She had decided not to end the fight, but rather, find a way to stop Six Shot from injuring himself further than he already was.

He was badly beaten and had often sworn a few times during their fight as he knew Sunstar just wasn't going to give in easily. He respected that. He really did. But all he could do was valiantly hold his ground and keep fighting as he was enjoying the challenge and wanted so much to be the winner of their little fight.

Sound Track and some of the others had been afforded a timely respite from the battle at hand, and were hiding in a secluded area away from the battle going on elsewhere.

Joyride asked, "So were be ev'ryone?"

Flashdance herself had managed to collect her fallen animecha from the battlefield and had reintegrated them into her light storage matrix, allowing them to heal and recuperate. She was currently assessing their damage and how much of her own energy it would take to help them. Many she had to prioritise and put their systems in stasis till she could get them back to Dragon Valley for the extra energy it would take in her system to help them.

Burnout had just walked in with Timewarp, a femme from their group who had been let out onto the field again after repairs, only to get injured and taken offline yet again.

"Everyone? Well lass I'm 'ere at least an' tha's all ye need!" commented Burnout jovially. She lived for the thrill of the battle, and once she had carefully placed the other femme, who had been draped on her shoulders into a safe position on the ground, she went off to take up a defensive lookout position up above the group.

Jazz and some members of his group watched as she left, and he commented, "She never quits does she?"

Joyride who was sitting next to Jazz replies, "I don' t'ink she be knowin' what de word means, she ain't dat bright!"

"I 'eard tha' ye li'l pansy!" Burnout calls from her spot.

This got a laugh out of him and some of his comrades.

Sound Track had been using her visor to study the area. While her vision was much like that of an x-ray, she could see a fair distance due to all the noise. She noticed that the group of young humans and their mechanoids had pulled back inside Iacon and now only two gestalts and several Autobots including Optimus Prime were still holding a battle line not far from their headquarters, several clicks north of their position.

"We have to be movin' soon ya'll before our way back ta base is cut off by enemy soldiers." She explains to the group.

Sunstar had just shown up with an offline Six Shot cradled in her arms. She was followed not too long after by the twins Sunstreaker and Sideswipe who had come across their hidden area by accident.

"What are you all sitting around for? We've got Decepticons to finish off." Comments Sunstreaker.

Jazz and the rest of his team were worn out. They hadn't fought this hard against any Decepticons in a very long time. And Sunstreaker's comment didn't help at all.

"Take it easy 'Streaker! Can't ya see we're overrun here? And on top of that we've gotta make a run back to Iacon while we're like this." Said Cliffjumper. He was empty of his usual bravado due to fatigue and injuries.

Sunstar notices this and puts Six Shot down aside from everyone, who was watching his limp form cautiously. "Perhaps I can be of assistance." She does not wait for an answer from Cliffjumper but instead gets straight to work in doing some makeshift medical repairs for the ones here in the area.

She thought to herself as she made repairs on who she could. She had finally gotten the edge on Six Shot and ended the fight honourably.

Some of Prime's soldiers had taken refuge here with her team mates. Sunstar was weary from her fight, but not out of energy, she was never out of energy, but she had a job to do. She looked around and saw everyone had a dent or two. Jazz had been brought in by Tracks, from what she had been told. Tracks and Hound had barely any scratches on them, but were low on energon. Cliffjumper had been helped here by Bumblebee, who was himself nursing severe injuries and had since passed out.

She spent time stabilising Bumblebee as best she could and got a hearty thanks from him when he came online again, but he needed more extensive repairs with tools Sunstar didn't currently have so Jazz decided to have him sent back to Iacon ahead of them as he was in no condition to fight and nor was Timewarp.

Vanguard appeared out of nowhere, "Ok folks we gotta hustle! Decep's heading this way." Jazz looked to Tracks and Hound, whom Sunstar had already finished with repairs for them, and then they went off with the twins to set up and ambush and plan themselves a run home to Iacon base. Vanguard transformed to her alternate mode and squeezed Timewarp, as well as Bumblebee, who made use of his Pretender shell, into her rear cab area and she took off for Iacon herself. That left Jazz, Blaster, Cliffjumper, the twins, Hound, Tracks, and Bluestreak, along Sound Track and her team.

As Sound Track issued orders to get her team to move out, Sunstar looked back to Six Shot. She'd have to leave him to his minor injuries and hope the Decepticons would find him and take him back to their own medic. Currently he was not online and had been out for quite some time. She had developed some respect for this one, and had kindly put him aside and out of the way of all the fighting, but made sure he would be visible to the incoming Decepticon war party.

Cliffjumper had observed Sunstar's actions, and decided to question her motivations. "He's just a Decepticon, Sunstar, you really think he's going to pay you any mind when he wakes up, and tries to kill you again?" he said gruffly.

Joyride watched as the two converse but then followed behind the rest of her group.

Sunstar continued to explain to Cliffjumper her reasons for setting the Decepticon warrior aside, "Six Shot fought well but was defeated honourably," she looked at Cliffjumper and then continued, "But I will leave him here to be found by his own kind rather than taking him back to Iacon for a less than honourable reception."

She then walked off after Sound Track to find a position in the battle field.

The look on Cliffjumper face was a confused one, and all he did was twist his fingers around near the side of his head to indicate that Sunstar was cuckoo. "What's her malfunction I wonder? asks Cliffjumper quietly.

Jazz wasn't at all impressed with his comrade's disrespect for Sunstar's choice, but rather than tell him off, he just shrugs and then moves on with the others.

Up atop their hidden spot, they lie in wait of the incoming Decepticon war party for an ambush.

"So, mother, do you think that new white mechanoid is Ella?" asked Sunstar through her private Comms link with Sound Track.

Sound Track knew Sunstar and several of the others of her team had never seen Ella in this form, but she decided to play innocent. "Cahn't say really." she replied. "Let's worry 'bout that later ya'll, rahght now, we got us a battle tah finish."

Sunstar knew her mother better than this. She was hiding something. "Can not say or will not say?" she asks, but gets no answer.

Then they both left their resting spot and joined the others to take their points for the ambush.

Jazz gathered his comrades and took their positions at one point for the ambush. While Sound Track took the remainder of her team and took up another position elsewhere.

In Iacon, the fighting was getting more intense. Optimus Prime had lost over half of his soldiers, and Perceptor, Grapple and Hoist were doing their best to repair the injured ones in the medilab as quickly as they could.

While most had retreated inside Central Command, only to be pursued by Destrons and Decepticons alike, a fierce battle still raged on outside.

Hot Rod and Kup showed up in the thick of the fight, only to have everyone surprised at Hot Rod's transformation into Rodimus.

"Hi guys, did ya miss me?" was all Rodimus said to everyone, before charging off like his usual self, to fight more enemies. He still had his devil may care Hot Rod personality, without the responsibilities of a Prime he could just be himself.

Optimus, during his fighting with some enemy, had just sighted the return of Jazz and his group not far off. But in the meantime, while finishing off the one he was battling, asks Kup in regards to Rodimus' transformation, "What happened?"

"I don't really know Prime, when that bird call went off, he just... transformed? Into that?" He paused for a moment. "It reminds me of the time when..."

"Not now Kup," said Jazz, as he and his team had finally made it back to Iacon, thankfully all still in one piece. Jazz had noticed Hot Rod's change from some distance off before he arrived and asks, "What happened ta him?"

"I don't know, Jazz, I really don't know?" responded Optimus.

Jazz looked a little confused, but said, "Perhaps Ella could explain, she's seems to have an explanation for all the weird stuff around here lately! Say, where is she, anyhow? Guess all that fightin' got us all separated an' all and we're all over the place, so she's gotta be around here somewhere?"

Several of the Autobots around shook their heads and said they hadn't seen her. Even Sound Track wouldn't comment when Jazz asked her about it.

"Strange?" he says to Rodimus who had just come back from being thwarted in a fight with a Destron. They look out over the battlefield at the white dragon mechanoid battling their enemy and Jazz comments, "I wonder if…?"

The battle continued.

The battle between the factions was still going on pretty strong. While at the start it looked like the Autobots had the losing edge, they had slowly but surely worked their way up to making everything even between the two sides. Even to the point where the tides were beginning to turn to their favour.

The Destrons were working under Decellion's orders but so far had failed to successfully capture or detain any Autobots in the process. The Decepticon army had done so at several stages but had failed to keep them detained as the groups had been found and rescued by their comrades and returned to the Autobot battle lines or to medical for repairs.

But for now the majority of the battles were centred in and around Iacon.

Somewhere near Iacon.

A small group of mechanoid humans were still holding their own in a rather furious fight close to the Autobots base.

"Incoming!" yelled a voice from the air. It was Rayleigh, in her mech suit, who had been thrown through the air by Soundwave's minion Frenzy, in an attempt to be rid of her. She crashed through a wall, but immediately got up again, transformed out of her mech suit, and allowed Firefly to resume her motorbike alternate mode.

Burnout commented, "Ye learnin' tae fly like yuir bike then, lass?" she joked.

"Meh," was all she said, and then looked in the direction of the fighting Decepticons. Indicating to Firefly to start revving the throttle, she continued, "Now where's that Decepticon punk Frenzy? Let me at 'im!" She raced off on the back wheel of the bike, ready to fight again.

Cliffjumper watched her go, and had a hearty laugh at her fighting attitude. "She always like that?" he asked Vanguard. She had returned to the fighting at some stage, having safely found a way to Iacon to deliver the wounded transformers to the medics.

Vanguard, looked down at Cliffjumper and said, "Yep, hale and hearty all the way!" She joined in with the laughter, only to have to grasp Cliffjumper and move him suddenly, as he narrowly missed being hit by a Destron laser blast.

"You ok, lil' red?" she asked him.

He brushed himself off, and gave her a thumbs up. Then they both raced off to find another fight. "Yeah I'm just fine." He grumbles.

Freefall was relieved she had been able to bring Starscream back before he had gotten too far and caused any trouble. She was also glad that Ella had thought to install backup programs within his system when he had first arrived at Dragon Valley base.

She knew he would try to get away as far as possible if he ever got loose. But she had not expected him to stoop so low as to take a hostage, and why Laura of all people. She wasn't too familiar with the young femme but she did know she was a mechanthrope. _'Perhaps that vest the reason why?'_ she thinks.

She wasn't terribly guilty about allowing the other reformed seekers at exacting some wanted vengeance on their former Commander either. She had let them cut loose, and Starscream was now residing under guard in his quarters after his healing system had fixed all the damage that Thundercracker, Sunstorm and Skywarp had dealt him.

She wasn't sure how adept Starscream was at detecting all the hidden fail safes Ella had secretly built into his system to keep him out of trouble, but she was glad at least one of them had kicked into gear the moment he'd stepped off the base and out its proximity. It had not taken her long, with the help of Ranger's family to track him down and retrieve him.

She had placed Warblade and Sunstorm on duty to watch over Starscream, as they were the least likely in her opinion to do anything to him while Carrion and Heartbeat were overseeing to his health.

Freefall was watching the medic and psychologist seeing him over for any problems. Starscream however was becoming irritated at all the physical and psychological prodding he was being forced to undergo.

She had decided to take a vigil over Starscream also. For his extra protection, as she had already had troubles with two members of her team, Hotshot and Bombshell, trying to get past the door and come into his quarters to cause Starscream further harm.

'_These two vere elvays trouble.'_ She thought to herself. As she watched them down below, _'Ve vill heve to vait till he is more vorthy of me before I cen begin his training.' _She sighs and walks down the balcony to the stairs at the end to join Heartbeat and Carrion and ask about the progress of Starscream's health check.

Down below.

"Ok You, sit still while I check something." Demands Heartbeat of Starscream.

"Get away from me femme!" screeches the former Air Commander, "Don't touch me."

Heartbeat wasn't bothered; she'd had to deal with worse here on this base before. She looks up and glances in Carrion's direction, "Doesn't like femmes does he?"

While Heartbeat finishes what she was doing and puts her implements away, she leaves him to Freefall's team psychologist, Carrion.

Heartbeat, or Heartia as she was better known was the head medic at Dragon Valley Base and also married to a team member of Team Excelsior, Professor Jackson Wheeler. She was one of the oldest living Bioroids that Ella knew of, older than even her biological mother was, and just refused to quit when it came to passing on, being that she knew she would always be needed to help. Her age showed very much, but other than that she was respected by everyone, and feared by some, on the base as she took no crap from anyone who crossed her path.

"Ow! Watch what you're doing!" exclaims Starscream. It seemed that Carrion had to resort to physical force to get any results out of her new patient.

Heartia only sighed. She was wishing that she was able to switch him offline for a fair while, as he had been nothing but a pain in the afterburners since she had brought him back online.

Carrion was busily attending to her new patient, who was currently not being very cooperative and she had used some physical force to get him to work with her.

She wasn't the best choice on the base to help Starscream, but she was physically capable of handling him if there was trouble. Their normal Psychologist, Vanguard, was not here right now.

Carrion wasn't exactly a qualified medic, but she was a qualified assassin, and more than qualified to seeing into the psyches of mechanoid minds due to her psionic abilities. The reason she was here on the base. Like Starscream she was incarcerated and under Ella's care on Dragon Valley base to serve out her time.

She was Deltronian like most of the Transformers who came through this base, but she was also a career assassin, who in getting too confident with her abilities, slipped up and was caught out by the Deltronian authorities and ended up as a specialist under Ella's care and rehabilitation.

She had been given a Biomode after a few years service of good behaviour when she had first arrived on the base and was now allowed to roam as a member of Freefall's team as a makeshift medic and assassin when needed.

Starscream fixed her with a surly look when she had finished poking and prodding and had finally left him alone. "Are you sure you're done?" he says snidely.

Carrion only smiled devilishly, "No I thought I'd treat you to a dose of being my next experiment." She jokes dryly. "Would you like to see just how much pain you can take?"

He gives her a challenging look as if to see whether she'd do it or not.

Heartbeat was now standing on the balcony above with Freefall and comments, "She'll do it you know. Force her way into your mind and not bother to be gentle about it either."

He decided that he was going to be at their mercy for some time and no loner wanted to be around these femmes any longer, so he ignored them and then turned his back on them all and wandered off to another room to be alone.

"If I did not know better I would say that he is now sulking." Comments Carrion.

Heartbeat laughs. "Guess he's just too afraid of femmes!" She places her hand on Freefall's shoulder before leaving, "Now don't go letting him go again eh!" she says playfully to the old mech next to her.

Freefall raises a brow and looks at Heartbeat, but she doesn't respond, knowing the old medic was just joking.

Off in the other room, Starscream had heard Heartbeat's comment about him being afraid of femme's and start's mouthing off at everyone who could hear him.

Freefall smiles, then just laughs lightly to herself and returns to her silent vigil of this arrogant warrior outside the room he was now holed up in.

The battle on Cybertron was still going strong, but the Destrons and Decepticons were losing ground. The Autobots had gotten themselves together with a sound strategy and fought back decidedly.

Some were no longer inside the confines of Iacon, but several groups had driven the unwanted visitors all the way back to their ships.

The landscape between the Dominion ship and Iacon was strewn with the bodies of Destrons who had fallen in battle against the Autobots. The Autobots also had their fair share of fallen warriors but had managed to retrieve their wounded and taken them back to Iacon for repairs. Some Decepticon soldiers however had begun to lose heart, but Galvetron spurred them on to continue fighting.

Elsewhere on the landscape, Decellion had gained a temporary victory. Ella in her white mechanoid form had suffered several debilitating injuries.

"Need a hand?" asks a familiar voice of the bruised and battered white dragon mech.

The dragon looked around to see Rodimus there. "Hot Rod?" it asks.

"Yeah!" he pauses and tilts his head as he recognises the white mechanoids voice. "That you Ella, it sure sounds like you?" he responds.

"Yes it is." She gets up slowly. She had been thrown quite some distance by Decellion in her Death Strike mechanoid. She stood very feebly on her dragon feet with Rodimus helping as much as he could.

Ella looked around. Decellion had for some reason lost interest in her as she was attacked by some Autobots who had swooped in on her fight in her absence.

She had noticed Decellion had turned her attention to Bonecrusher who had taken to fighting her now. Then she realised Bonecrusher's core was giving off more energy than it should, making it a target for Decellion, thinking it was something she could find useful. She could do nothing but watch and try to feebly walk with Rodimus as he helped her to somewhere secluded for rest.

"You'll be okay here, safe." He tells her.

She isn't convinced. She knows that Bonecrusher's power core had started to show energy levels that it shouldn't. She knew it would be a problem. "I can't stay here. There are things happening that you wouldn't understand." She gets out with much pain.

He responds nonchalantly, "Oh you mean about the Power Matrices? And about how Optimus, Bonecrusher and Sound Track have them."

She looks at him quickly wondering how he knew. She asks "How did you know that?"

"Uh?" He realises he said something he was supposed to keep to himself. As it was Rodine that had initially told him the information and he was asked to keep it quiet.

Rodine on the other plane, watching his young charge, was shaking his head at him in slight amusement. _'Young people these days!'_ he jokes, thinking to himself, not letting Rodimus hear him.

And for a moment Ella thought for a moment that she felt a familiar presence, but then just shrugged it off. "Never mind. You can't leave me here. I have to get back over to the battle and finish the fight." She slowly but surely shifts her body to a robotic form for this dragon. The hold that that other force had on her was gone and she was now free to change back to her humanoid form if she wanted, but instead changed to a transformer's robot mode instead.

Rodimus admired her form for a moment before commenting, "You're in no condition right now to do anything. Let us finish this."

"Thanks but no thanks. I need to do this myself." She continues.

He thinks to himself, _'Damn she's so stubborn. Just like Rodine said she was.'_ He helps her back onto her feet and attempts to get her where she wants to be.

Ella and Rodimus get to an area where they can survey the battle close to them. Ella notices everything that's going on and sees that Decellion has now got the upper hand. She was still fighting with Bonecrusher, but now in Ella's absence, Sound Track had joined her. Both were having trouble keeping one step ahead. Even though both were seasoned warriors, neither had the strength or skill to match Decellion's powers levels unless…

Ella opened a private communication with both Bonecrusher and Sound Track. _'Now is as good a time as any you two. Let as much of the power flow out as you can without doing any permanent damage to yourselves. Keep her distracted long enough for the Autobots to drive off the Decepticons and the rest of the Destrons and get this fight over and done with, its been going on for too long now.'_

Not too far away, Sound Track had been completely overrun by Destrons, having gotten buried underneath them. Several seconds of being away from fighting Decellion, being forced away as she wasn't strong enough to fight against her, she had been swamped by Destrons on the villainess's orders. Sound Track saw it as a perfect opportunity to let her special power core be unleashed, after she had received Ella's call.

Elsewhere, the others in her team who were close by her, noticed the absence of sound and motioned to all their comrades in arms around them to take immediate cover. And they were glad they did.

Sound Track let loose with a loud, banshee-like sonic scream that pretty much flattened everything around her for about 100 meters.

Along with the expulsion of large amounts of energy she was able to activate the extra power core within her and get Decellion's attention.

Bonecrusher, upon initially receiving the order from Ella, wasn't quite sure what it was about. But she had caught on real quick when she saw what Sound Track did and followed suit. She knew that the new power core Ella's biological mother had given her was something different from the usual power ups Novara usually gave out. She just stood there in her beast mode facing Decellion in Death Strike and stared her down.

Decellion figured some thing was going on. Not until she guarded herself from Sound Track's attack did she realise and then she got caught up with Bonecrusher staring her down for a fight.

It was then that Bonecrusher transformed into her robot mode with a power level unlike anything she had ever seen. She then realised these two females had something she wanted desperately.


	17. Chapter 17 Divine Intervention

In The Beginning

Divine Intervention

"Whoa, that's one infernal voice she's got there!" comments Blaster from nearby.

He and a few others had made their way back to Iacon, and many were overlooking the scene between Bonecrusher, Sound Track and Death Strike now going on in an open area of Iacon.

There were many fights going on all over the open area but some had even stopped fighting to watch the energy being thrown about by the three femmes now fighting amongst themselves.

Even Grimlock and the Dinobots had stopped chewing on Destrons to watch the fight for a moment before going after more Destrons to chew on.

Meanwhile, Rodimus and Ella in her new transformer robot form had made their way fighting close to where Decellion was, who was now fighting against Bonecrusher and Sound Track some distance away.

Ella noticed that Bonecrusher and Sound Track were not looking like their normal selves. They were now bigger, more powerful and definitely more dragon like in appearance than they were before.

Rodimus had brazenly tried to go and assist more than once and Ella had to hold him back from the fight saying he wasn't strong enough against Decellion and that her two comrades were doing just fine right now. He became frustrated and went off to join his own comrades in beating back some Decepticons and Destrons close by, leaving her too contemplate the actions of her friends below from where she was now watching them fight.

Alliance Council building on Alpha Prime.

For months the council had been deliberating on several subjects. Mainly the day to day events that were happening all over the Alliance territories. On some of the outside fringes of the Alliances areas of space they were being hacked away at by the Dominion's main attack forces, both on a political level and a physical one.

They had tried to send emissaries to engage in peace talks with the Dominion, but so far none had come back. They had all disappeared and couldn't be found to be rescued either. They had not bothered to send any more emissaries to waste any more lives in order to try and talk it out with the Dominion.

The political unrest between both the Alliance and the Dominion had been present ever since the old war where they had taken back the Alliance for themselves again from under the yolk of oppression by the former Dominion regime.

But that was millions of years ago.

Since then the small amount of Dominion supporters were all carted off and dumped onto another planet that they made their home and the Alliance was safely out of the control of Decellion again after she had been imprisoned.

But since her subsequent escape and return to her once loyal brethren, the Dominion had taken it upon themselves to try and re-establish a foothold once again.

Their political advisors had all but disappeared from Alliance space; instead they had replaced them with undercover agents in every nook and cranny that the Dominion could spare to keep an eye on the Alliance.

The council of course had seen who they were, the ones who were trying to spy on Alpha Prime itself and immediately ejected every last single one of them from Alpha Prime.

The rest however were made known to all other parts of the Alliance where their military was in the most danger of being compromised.

The Alliance Military Defence Forces were engaged in skirmishes all over parts of the Alliance itself in order to weed out not only spies, but also soldiers acting under orders from the Dominion Military to attack and take over where they could.

It was a very slow process for the Dominion Military on this front as Decellion had decided to turn her attention to something else and had left them to fight for what they wanted.

Many believed that with the return of Decellion, their power and right to dominate and rule would also return and so many were fighting with an effort against the Alliance that they had not had in previous years.

The main stock of the Alliance Military was strewn out in many places but there remained a few expert warriors around Alpha Prime to protect the council, and even more teams around the Alliance to do the same job.

The Councillors themselves were at this moment watching the battle on Cybertron.

'_Should we advise our agent?'_

'_Perhaps.'_ Says the head councillor, _'But her identity is already known to the one we are watching that is on this Cybertron right now. That and she has her own projects to attend to right now.'_

'_Oh you mean the one who is the chosen protector of the herald of Primus?'_ asks another.

'_Oh Yes!'_ another pipes up, _'Isn't our agent the last one left? I mean all the others except our agent are gone now are they not?'_

'_Not completely. Can't you feel that energy? There are several patterns showing up on Cybertron. Primus has something to do with this. He is the soulmind of that planetary mind after all.' _Responds someone.

The head Councillor speaks, _'Yes on all accounts there fellow Councillors. I am of the opinion that white will gather them all together again no matter what form they have chosen to take in their new lives now, and we will be rid of the chaos. Last time we did not have the chance to find all of the Power Matrices in time before the strike of the Black. But we had found an adequate amount that helped us divert the war and allow the Black to be vanquished, even if only temporarily.'_

'_But not completely, unfortunately.'_ Adds one of them.

'_No, not completely. The quantum singularity that the Black was put inside of in the first instance was still present even after she escaped the first time. If it were not for the young White at the time forcing her back in there with the blast of light coursing through Primus himself then we would never have gotten the Black back in there and sealed her prison, shut for a time and out of our way. And the Alliance would never have had the chance to grow to what it is now.'_

'_Hmm, yes! I also believe it is time to add some more planets to the Alliance. Is it time to allow them to take part yet?'_

One Councillor had asked this as they had been deliberating about the addition of Earth, Cybertron and several other planets into the Alliance in the near future. The head Councillor tells them, _'We will contact someone on Earth to arrange it. Hopefully he will listen to us long enough to understand our need.'_

'_Perhaps he will not listen to us. I could not blame him, especially after last time. It was the Grey who poisoned his mind against us, but we did prevail and he did listen to us eventually. And there is the added mess of what those other people on Earth are doing. We should stop them from interfering with what Ella is trying to do, but it is not our place to intervene in that business is it?'_

'_No it is not. If perhaps Earth became part of the Alliance, then we could do something to openly intervene to take care of them and their machinations.'_

The discussion of adding Earth to the Alliance was becoming very popular amongst the Councillors, but they were also considering Cybertron.

'_And what about Sigma? Surely Tau can wait if we add old Sigma to the Alliance next. It would be a bonus as it is between us and Earth. We could establish permanent agents there. I am sure the natives would be grateful of the assistance in helping to return their planet to its former glory, and it would also allow us to assist them in protecting the real chosen one amongst them that they have yet to truly discover. And it is one of the original systems after all.'_

Several agreed on this also while they were watching the battle rage fiercely on Cybertron. They unanimously decided to attend to adding Cybertron to the Alliance next. They already knew that Cybertron and several other planets, including Earth, Nebulon and Paradron as well as a few others, already had an Alliance of its own and it would not take long before word of them approaching Cybertronian dignitaries with an offer to join the Alliance would reach them.

On the battlefield, Optimus had lasted for longer than he thought he would have. He had been spending most of his time fighting on and off with Galvatron and in between fights, attending to his troops over the battlefield.

He had been given a reprieve at some point by Ella in her white dragon bot mode who had left Decellion alone for the time being to allow Bonecrusher and Sound Track to keep her busy while she helped out with everyone on the field who needed help.

She knew that Prime had one of the Matrices, but convincing him to relinquish it to assist her two comrades would be unnecessary if she could tell him what she needed him to do without any fuss and get him to participate in her little idea to rid Cybertron of Decellion, Galvatron and the rest.

She had found Sunstar on the way over to Prime's location beforehand and had gotten her to shift down to her Biomode and heal as many fighters on the field as she could.

Sunstar tried to get to everyone, but being the size of a human, Iacon was a big area to cover. She was only able to use this ability while she was in her Biomode but was grateful she could use it to help others.

She healed Optimus back to normal operational status and immediately went back to anyone else she could find that needed help.

Optimus thanked her as she left and turned to Ella, "Are you sure she doesn't run out of power that quickly?" He had recently discovered the white mechanoid's identity as Ella and was grateful for her helping him out.

"She can get weary but her energy pretty much goes for a long while before getting really tired." Ella replies. She wasn't sure how she was going to broach the subject of getting Optimus Prime's help with his Matrix unit, but she asked anyway. "We will however need your help with something else involving the Matrix unit you have in your possession?" she pauses to watch his reaction and he listens to her closely as soon as he hears mention of the Matrix.

"I'm sure by now you're aware that there is no power left in the Matrix of leadership due to the Hate plague we stopped several years ago?" he tells her.

"Yes, but…" she stops again. "There is more to that device than you realise. It is a shame Elita One is not around to show you, but we can make do with you if you wish to help me with an idea I have to get them," She indicates to the enemy fighters, "off of Cybertron for now."

Optimus is curious about what she meant when she mentioned Elita One but he decided it was best to leave it till another time to ask about it and get into action. "What do I need to do?" he asks confidently.

Port Angeles.

Several individuals had arrived on Earth to assist Adam with his little project, one such individual was a former mech soldier named Armstrong. For a long time he had been involved in Special Forces missions in the Alliance Military but had long since retired and was now being given a second chance to help along with some other mechs who had secretly been brought to Earth.

He was unfamiliar with the Dragon Valley Base only ever having heard of it in the past but had never been there. And so had spent the better part of the day getting lost around it, and constantly consulting maps to find his way around.

"This place is like a maze!" he comments to himself quietly. He had finally found his way back to the rec room and sat down to entertain himself with some television. Finding himself some reruns of old Earth TV shows sitting by the wayside near the TV in the Disc case collection he asks the others in the rec room to help him set it up for some viewing. He did this for several hours, taking in all the old Earth TV shows he could while he waited for his new partner to show up, enjoying everything he was seeing, especially old favourites like Airwolf and MacGuyver.

When a one Aaron Murphy did show up finally, he just stood there watching the mech breeze through all the TV episodes on fast forward.

"Wish I could do that!" he jokes, "it certainly would save me heaps of time when I'm watching reruns and new shows I've had to tape when I work!"

Armstrong was not expecting anyone to disturb him but he turned off the Disc player and looked down at the human. "You're Murphy ain't ya?"

Aaron looks up at him, "Yep!" He answers, "I'm sure we'll get along just fine big guy!" having noticed that most of the TV show discs that the mech had obviously watched happened to be from reruns he himself had a collection of at home.

Armstrong smiles down at him in a friendly manner, "I'm sure you've probably seen all these before but do you wanna watch anything with me? It'll give us a chance to chat and get to know each other too!"

"Be glad to!" Aaron comments. "I need an excuse to relax for a bit, seeing as how work has been getting me bogged down lately!"

And so the conversation continued…

Cybertron.

Ella had quietly indicated to Sound Track and Bonecrusher through their private radio comms about her idea. Sound Track on one hand wasn't so sure it'd work due to Prime's gender but Ella assured her it would regardless so she didn't argue with it.

Sound Track had taken point with the power correlation of the devices and showed Bones' how to do it too.

Optimus became slightly put off guard when Sound Track had contacted him telepathically, alerting him to the situation. _'So are ya'll in?' _she asked him.

'_Yes.'_ He answers back to her in his head,_ 'What do I need to do?'_ She shows him how. Where to connect his system to the power conduits of his Matrix unit and he does it. He can feel the amount of power connecting the units that are in possession of Bonecrusher and Sound Track and it amazes him. It is more power than he's ever been able to feel coming from the Matrix before and he hopes it is enough to do the job that Ella had explained to him.

This little trick of Sound Track's with the Matrices didn't escape Decellion's attention. As soon as the power grid had been put up she could sense it. "It'll make no difference mechanoids. Your power will be mine!" she says under her breath through the vocalisation units of Death Strike.

It only took them moments for all three transformers to get into position. Even though Decellion could sense them all, she noted that they had all taken points around her and wondered what they were up to.

'_So easy!'_ she thought, _'Any one of them is close enough to take. Which one shall it be?'_

While she was deciding in her head as to which one she would attack and take the Power Matrice from, Sound Track, Bonecrusher or Optimus Prime, or maybe all of them at once. She thought getting three units in one go would save her much searching of planets for the rest.

But Ella had other ideas, what she was getting them to do now was not something she had ever done in Decellion's presence before, back then she had used her own power without the help of the Power Matrices. This trick would only be a temporary respite, hopefully enough to get the aggressors to leave and enough to affect Decellion and her black dragon enough to shut her down temporarily. But it wouldn't put them out of service permanently. It would at least give them time to recover before they had to fight the Dominion soldiers and the Decepticons again.

Her idea was to spread the three Power Matrices around Decellion and have her surrounded, capturing her in a sense, then Ella would enter the circle and the showdown would begin. She would bind Decellion in a blast of light hopefully getting Decellion to abandon her want of the Power Matrices for now and leave Cybertron and any other planets where the old Matrices where, alone for a fair while.

She had become frustrated with Death Strike's attacks on the populace of Cybertron and also annoyed with the fact she had enlisted the help of the Decepticons to do this. She knew she was only using them to get what she wanted. The question was, did Galvatron realise it yet or not?

Decellion could sense the energy bindings around her but could not see them. She had allowed the three she was watching to get close to her so she could make a grab for one of them and take what she wanted, but she had not seen that it was a trap meant to bind her in a circle of invisible light where she was now standing.

Once Ella had entered the circle, Decellion suddenly realised she was set up in a trap and now had an idea what was coming. She had not seen anyone do something like this before but she did know that connecting the power of the Matrices would allow it. She was now fully aware of what was going on and what their plan was.

She however was not going to leave without her prizes and was not going to be taken down by some pathetic little sycophant of old Aurellion, her old foe, like this one.

Ella unfurled a second and third set of wings from the robotic mode she was in and stood a distance from Decellion after she came through the circle and faced her down. Many would look on but this was a battle between just the two of them. It would be something unusual for the Transformers to watch as it would be almost like a battle out of some fantasy movie, a force of evil battling a force of good right here on Cybertron's surface, two dragons being controlled by two rather aged femmes.

The circle did its trick and Ella indicated to her helpers to let it go. It had done its job, and kept Decellion in one spot for long enough. It had also allowed her an extra power boost in the meantime. She had not had reason to use the extra set of wings that this mechsuit had for a very long time, not since the old days of this planet when she fought against Deukalion and the Fallen alongside her other brethren. She would not have to use her full power though, she had not had a battle with anyone yet that had pushed her that far. Fate would just not allow her to let loose the way she would really have wanted, instead having to go for the cautious route most of the time and perpetually hold back.

Decellion knew this too, and she saw the smirk on her opponents face. It made her straighten up quickly and prepare for a real good fight. She knew that Ella wouldn't bother holding back now.

Ella charged up the power grid and attacked, Decellion likewise braces for the painful impact. Then when the impact happened, everything went bright as well as flattening everything close to their fight at ground zero, leaving everyone running for cover or getting caught up in the whirlwind of power.

What happened next was this; Decellion was caught unawares by the strength of the light blast and put down for the count by Ella's white dragon form. The Destrons whom she had brought with her started to spread the word that she was down and retreated back to the ships anchored in space around Cybertron taking Decellion's offline mind and Death Strike mechsuit with them. They got called cowards by Galvatron who was still trying to hold the line of his own troops after they retreated. He had to give in and order a full retreat himself as he was vastly outnumbered now by the Autobots with the Destrons gone. Some however were left behind deliberately to retrieve the ones captured and put into the brigs already.

While the Autobots were watching them leave, Ella was too, she went and hovering up in the atmosphere above Cybertron watching them leave, making sure they did so.

But she knew that not all of them had left with the ships, some had been left behind and those were the ones that Optimus had ordered his soldiers to round up and incarcerate.

'_I told her a long time ago she would never get what she wanted from anyone, least of all anyone I was protecting.'_ Ella thought solemnly to herself.

She had to clutch her head suddenly though. That last bit of power she used to take out Decellion had taken its toll. Years of holding back her power had diminished her ability to cope with the immense pressure through her systems and she had to cope with the recovery from it. But that wasn't the only reason for it, there was something else eating away at Ella from the inside. But for now she had done her job. She noticed as she started falling from the sky that her body was changing back to her human form. She thought to herself quietly thanking Primus for the chance to protect his own and the Autobots for fighting.

Close by. Watching her like a falling star some Autobots were looking her way at that moment. Optimus was standing with Sideswipe and Rodimus.

"Sideswipe, you have any fuel left in your rocket packs?" asks Rodimus.

"A little. Enough to do what I think you want me to do if you can get me over there." He responds.

Rodimus transforms and adds, "Hop on; we've got a falling star to catch!"

They made it just in time before Ella's glowing body hit the ground; Sideswipe using the last of his jet pack fuel to make the last jump to catch her mid air.

'Whoah, she's white hot!' he winced as he caught her, doing his best to keep hold of her as she started to cool down. He handed her over to First Aid as soon as the medic turned up. She was still glowing slightly as she was passed between mechs. And Sideswipe trying to cool his own lightly melted armour from holding Ella.

Most of the Roughnecks were out on the field still helping other Autobots round up strays, as was Bonecrusher's team. But right now Bonecrusher and Sound Track were present watching the goings on. Sound Track helped load Ella into the back of First Aid's alternate mode, but a few of them wanted to talk to her before they left as she had just started to gain consciousness and saw them all staring at her.

"That was some nice flyin' moves I saw up there!" comments Sideswipe.

Optimus had walked up also, "Thank you Sideswipe, but don't you have something to do?" he asks his soldier politely.

"Ah yeah right boss! See ya!" Sideswipe transforms and zooms off.

Rodimus is talking with Ella, "So you like being a falling star eh?"

She knew he was joking, she was sore all over but had to grin at his audacity. "Even though you've got a temporary upgrade as Rodimus, you're still that bold hot head underneath aren't you!"

"Temporary? So you wanna clue me in on that eh?" He asks curiously.

"Later ok!" She sits back and tells First Aid to go. He closes the back hatch of his alt mode and starts towards Iacon and the medical centre.

Bonecrusher and Sound Track were conversing amongst themselves as they watched Ella leave with First Aid. They were about to leave each others company and join their own teams when Optimus pulled them aside, "Wait you two, please? I'd like to talk to you both."

Bonecrusher answers, "About what exactly Optimus?"

He was curious about their power and what he felt from them while he was linked to their systems in the circle Sound Track had him and Bonecrusher participate in, "May I see them?"

Rodimus was just getting up after watching Ella leave with First Aid and heard Optimus pull up the two overgrown femmes. He was also curious and chimed in, "This I've gotta see!"

Both the femmes were reluctant at first to show their secret but they opened their chest cases and took out the Power Matrices that they were the guardians of. Both of the units were still glowing and pulsating, one red and the other blue, and did so even more when Optimus took out his own Matrix and held it next to them, ever glowing gold in colour.

They were unprepared for what happened next though. Several Autobots had come past as onlookers to what they were doing and were just as amazed. Prime's Matrix had been quiet ever since their little escapade years ago with defeating the hate plague, but right now, in close proximity to the other two devices, it was being supercharged and its former golden glow returned with fervour.

"Well how do ya'll lahke that!" exclaims Sound Track as she returns her own device to her chest casing and returns her size to her original sized robot mode.

"Hmm!" is all Bonecrusher says, "Very curious!" But it is a question to be answered another time." She too transforms but back to her dinosaur alt mode and sizes down again. "We will have a chance to discuss the matter at another time Optimus, right now we have some rounding up of strays to do!" she calls back to him as she walks off to join her team.

Later.

Everywhere, the Autobots had begun to drive out the strays, but none were leaving without a fight, and were very adamant about it, too.

In one area, Hailey and her motorcycle partner, Highway, and her father in his mech unit, were fighting the Decepticon Battlechargers, Runabout and Runamuck, but were not faring very well.

Elsewhere in the same general area, Vanguard was having fun outmanoeuvring Blitzwing. She wasn't very fast, but she was tough, and his blasts weren't hitting home as she was evading each one just in time. That was, until the Battlechargers crossed her path. She wasn't able to get out of the way in time, and was pushed down a steep embankment and into a crevice below. Blitzwing had seen her fall, and pulled around for a clear shot of her position inside the crevice. He had only come across Vanguard by chance as Galvatron had left him behind with orders to retrieve Astrotrain, but Astrotrain was already free under his own means of escape and currently picking up the strays to return to the Decepticon ship.

While being chased by the Battlechargers, Peter turned his vehicle around when he saw in his rear vision mirror what happened to Vanguard, and what Blitzwing was about to do. Hailey had been left to lead these Decepticons away, while Peter turned back for Vanguard. Driving back, a strange feeling came over him. Then, up on the battle computer screen inside his cab, a new mode beeped for confirmation, but he didn't notice it as he was too focused on driving to save Vanguard. He saw a jump up ahead that he could use to jump and crash into Blitzwing who had just transformed to take his shot, but once he was in the middle of the jump, his body suddenly glowed, and his essence absorbed by his mech vehicle's power core, while the rest of the vehicle transformed from vehicle mode to robot mode.

Landing not too far from Blitzwing, and with no time to look over at his new form, he saw, over the edge of an embankment, an offline Vanguard and he ran towards the Decepticon.

Blitzwing was so focused on an easy target, that he didn't really see the mech approaching. While targeting through his scope lens, he said, "Bye bye, bitch bot," and snarled coldly.

"Oh no, you don't!" said Peter in his new robot mode.

Then Blitzwing took a good look at the mech, "You! You're supposed to be dead?!" Peter ignored Blitzwing as he crash tackled him and sent him flying down into the crevice, even further down than where Vanguard was.

Peter jumped down and collected Vanguard, but before he did, he looked at his new body of his. He felt a familiarity with it, and comfort, as if it was meant for him, and there were some familiar memories too starting to upload into his mind. But he ignored these for now and went to retrieve Vanguard and attempt to return topside, the same way he got down.

In Iacon, the Autobots had managed to miss rounding up most of the Decepticons left behind due to an escaped Astrotrain gathering them up and taking off with them. But they did get Blitzwing, who was now in the brig and the others were relaxing and taking rest breaks after the day's battle.

Elsewhere, the Dinobots had gotten their last two cents in, as they finished off some leftover Destrons.

Glad that the fight was over, the Autobots and their Deltronian guests and others cheered and exhaled fumes of relief.

Sound Track and Sunstar had taken a high point somewhere to make sure that the group outside were protected from any more strays in the area, but being that they both found no sign of any more, came down to the others to let them know.

Optimus, in the meantime, had let Heather transform back to her mechanthropoid mode. She had been slightly embarrassed by the compliment he had paid her for her help, and although she hadn't shown it, she smiled to herself.

"This place wears me out, so very easily," commented Burnout. "There's nae volcanoes tae draw energy from, and I'm dead tired, tha' and there's nae more Decep's tae fight," she laughed, but clutched her sides due to her soreness.

"Don't worry, Big Red," said Sideswipe, as he slapped her on the back. He got an icy stare from her. "We'll get you fighting fit again!"

"Is tha righ' lad!" She returned the back slap, and he got thrown several yards, getting a laugh from several of his comrades including his twin who had collapsed in hysterics over the action.

Sideswipe got up, dusted himself off and smiled, then looked in Burnout's direction, who was smiling back at him. He shrugged at her and she started laughing, but then stopped as she ached all over.

Joyride, still laughing, said, "Anyone be seein' Vanguard, she be with us all before?"

Several of them shook their heads in disagreement, including Hailey, who didn't know what had happened to her. She looked at her older sister.

Heather commented, "Father's gone, too?" She was referring to her father Peter Rawlings.

"Maybe tha two are off doin' somethin' eh?" jokes Burnout

Heather smiles weakly and she was just about to go and ask Sound Track to borrow some others to help go look for them, when Bumblebee saw something.

"Either I'm seeing things, or that's Prowl walking this way!" stated Bumblebee, only half believing what he was seeing.

"Prowl? Where?" asks Blaster.

'_Well at least I don't have to keep a secret anymore!'_ thinks Jazz when he saw him.

Everyone turned to look, and those that knew him, did indeed recognize the mech that was carrying an offline Vanguard as their old comrade, returned from the dead.

Peter put Vanguard down, and Jazz walked right up to him and said, "Welcome back!" while shaking his hand. Peter, as Prowl, smiled at his old friend.

Then he turned and locked optics with Optimus.

But before Optimus could say anything, Vanguard started to stir. "Ugh... what hit me?" she said, trying to get up. "My optics ain't workin'?"

Startled by this new development, she was unprepared as Peter grabbed her arm and led her to a seat, and then asked her to sit down. "Take it easy, I'm here." He says in comfort.

"Pete?! S'at you? Ya don't sound like yourself, in fact you sound like my old buddy Prowl," she asked. Everyone went quiet, and she began to wonder. "Hey, what'd I say? C'mon guys, I'm blind here, tell me!"


	18. Chapter 18 Revelations

In The Beginning

Revelations

In an area near the medilab, Vanguard argued with Ella. She had done so since she had had her optics fixed, and returned to her Biomode to talk with Ella on her human sized level.

"And how long were you going to let it carry on before you told me about this?" she said angrily to Ella.

"Vanessa, just calm down and listen, please" Ella pleaded.

"I am calm!" Vanessa screamed. She was seething; she had never quite been comfortable with Ella and her secrets, and Ella knew it.

Ella looked her straight in her optics and commented, "Well, if it makes you feel better..." Ella lifted her chin slightly and put her arms out, as a gesture to Vanessa. Vanessa picked up on the cue, like she had so many times before, and promptly gave Ella a massive right hook.

Ella didn't get knocked down, but only turned her head slightly to absorb the impact of Vanessa's super strong punch. Then she got out a tissue to wipe the mech fluid exuding from her now broken nose, before it started to heal again very quickly.

Vanessa calmed down and sighed. "All I'm saying is that you could've told me that was going to happen. You know how I feel about your hiding things from us." She walked away from Ella, and over to Peter who had been shown how to return to his Biomode for Vanguard's benefit.

Elsewhere in the room, the conversation was being watched from afar. Rayleigh commented to Heather, "She sure as hell doesn't let us get away with that!"

Heather looked at her friend and replied, "That's because we are not on her primary team." She looked over to see Vanessa next to Peter, her mother and father, chatting away. "As bad tempered as mother can be on those rare occasions."

"And how are you and Hailey coping with this?" queried Rayleigh.

Heather shrugged, but didn't get the chance to answer as one of the other Autobots nearby, who had heard the conversation, chimed in.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, ladies, but did I just hear you say Vanguard is your mother?" Bumblebee asked Heather.

Heather smiled back at him. "Yes, she is."

Trailbreaker, who had also been listening, commented. "I guess I'm rather curious as to how that would have come about but for now, I guess that would make us relatives, then?" he casually joked.

"Yes, it would," she replied, and laughed while trying to shake Trailbreaker's big hand.

Optimus had been observing the situation from a computer console nearby, though he was still busy working on the outcome of the battle for his reports and going over it with a fine tooth comb.

Peter, after providing Vanessa some comfort, switched back to his robot form, and walked over to join Optimus at his controls. Optimus had asked Kup, who was helping him, to finish the last bit of work, and motioned Prowl outside to talk.

"This is certainly an unexpected pleasure to have you back again, old friend," stated Optimus, placing his hand on Prowl's shoulder. "You realise of course that the twins are probably plotting your downfall already."

"Most likely." He muses to himself crossing his arms and shifting his door wings. "I don't remember everything right now; it is all slowly coming back to me. But I think for now it would be best if I returned with Ella to Earth for a while to recuperate from this event."

"Come now Prowl!" mused Optimus, "I know you better than that. You don't ever take time off, and even when you do you still try to work!"

"You're right." He replied, "But there is something I am involved in back on Earth that I would like to see through." He of course was referring to all the others who were on Earth. He was hoping that they would follow suit soon enough. But then there was also the Excelsior project that Adam Drake had them working on in secret.

Prowl wandered over to the viewing window and looked out over the landscape of his old home. "It is somewhat strange being back here again, like this. I feel more of a closer kinship to Earth now than to here."

"Do you?" asks Optimus.

"It is but there is a grand familiarity about it also. Everything is falling into place now. It will only take a short amount of time for me to reorient myself and take care of business back on Earth and then return to active duty alongside you and the Autobots again."

"Perhaps. What fascinates me is the fact you are here," says Optimus. "I do distinctly remember you being as dead as I was once. But then I'm not one to question as I myself was dead for a small period of time before I was returned to life by a rogue Quintesson."

Prowl was staring off into space through the window, he could tell that Optimus missed his old friend dearly, Ratchet was one mech that was closer to Optimus than anyone else had been and had been a sturdy rock for him for millions of years throughout the war. "Perhaps the Matrix will see fit to return Ratchet and the others to us as I was returned, in due time." He thought this comment might sooth Optimus' old pain at losing such a dear friend to him.

"Only Primus knows." Optimus comments.

It was a strain on Prowl not being able to tell Optimus about the others just yet. Ella had confided in him that it would all just happen naturally. She knew about Jazz and him discovering the truth, and knew Jazz would keep a secret about it till the time came.

Prowl opens the window and looks outside at all the cleanup work going on, feeling the light breeze of air from the lightly oxygenated atmosphere Cybertron had. He did miss Earth too. That place had been his home as a human for over a hundred years now, thanks to Vanessa.

He had to admit it but being inadvertently married as a human to a Cybertronian femme was what helped him to begin to remember his past in the first place. He never told Vanessa about these episodes of latent memories arising. He had instead gone to Ella for some therapy in coping with the reprising memories. She had told him that it was not yet the right time to tell Vanguard and being that she had always been reliable in the past, he followed her instruction.

He also knew that a long chat between himself and his femme partner was forthcoming and was not looking forward to her illogical emotional outbursts that she was capable of. At the best of times she was quiet and just like him, but she had a whole other side to her that was the complete opposite of what he was, and sometimes it worried him, worried him enough to actually show some form of passive emotion and express himself.

Optimus looked on at his old comrade staring out the window for a while as Prowl seemed to be thinking. He was curious about one thing though. "So what is it like?"

Prowl turned back to him, "What is what like?" he returns the question.

"What is it like being married as a human to a femme who can become a human?"

"Oh that!" Prowl is somewhat amused by his old commanders question, but not surprised. Someone was bound to ask about the complexity of his relationship with Vanessa sooner or later. Especially since she was a younger sibling, or co-creation of Trailbreaker's who inadvertently had a sophisticated Biomode shell that was near enough in form to actually be able to be disguised as a human form.

"I'm curious about the children you have too. How is that even remotely possible?"

Prowl knew he would have to try and explain that part to someone eventually and he wasn't looking forward to it. In a way it defied logic that it could've even happened, but it had and he was at a loss for words.

"Perhaps another time then!" mused Optimus. He could tell Prowl brow was furrowing from something, a tell tale sign that there was a distinct loss of a logical explanation for him to explain it, and so he let it go.

They continued to chat for a while, catching up on old times, before some of the other Autobots decided to join the two and joined in on the conversation.

Prowl getting heaps of jeers from some of the more jovial Autobots about his partnership with Vanguard and many wanted to know the gossip and where they could get their own femmes.

He could do nothing but sigh and remember that this was how it used to always be with them, and he couldn't help but smile and be happy that he was indeed back in familiar territory again.

Near DragonValley Base, Earth.

Freefall had determined that Starscream had settled down from his house arrest and apparent escape from the base and decided to take him into a settlement to test his reaction, but under very close guard.

She knew he hated 'fleshlings'. And Ella would never have approved of this idea as it was too risky, allowing him this freedom and perhaps the opportunity to get loose again, especially after what he had just tried to do.

She had forwarded her report about what had happened to Ella while she was still on Cybertron. Ella hadn't been terribly impressed, but then she hadn't been too surprised about it either. A check over the security systems at the base had proven that at the same time Ella had transformed to her dragon form, Starscream had that little episode in his quarters. She confided in Freefall that as long as she kept him with her at all times now, there shouldn't be a problem until she arrived back to the base from Cybertron and replaced his collar.

But she warned her friend, Starscream was trickier than he appeared to be despite his arrogant and long winded outlook.

When she had told Ella of her idea to take him in amongst the populace of the local City of Prot Angeles, she had objected at first. But she gave in. She knew Freefall was reliable enough with her choices to know what she was doing, and trusted her judgement, so she left her to it.

It had been almost an hour now since Freefall, in her human form of 'Freya' had escorted Starscream in his Biomode into Port Angeles. At every instance he had tried to get away from her, but she had found him again, flaunting the fact that he was still a prisoner.

He had had devices locked onto his person to prevent him using his special abilities while in his Biomode as well as the fact that Freefall also had Heartia inject a nano locator on him so she could track him, even though she didn't need it, she knew it would be necessary at some later stage.

Starscream did nothing but scowl at everyone as they passed by him in the City. He was even more disgusted when these human femmes kept looking at him.

"Try to seem pleasant comrade Star'. These humen femmes ere only admiring your good looks!" she mused to herself.

This had raised his brows and gotten his curiosity, "Good looks?"

"Da. Eccording to the human stenderds of appearance. You now renk highly eppealing to them."

Starscream was not terribly impressed with that information. He would now have to deal with the fact he may end up with human admirers fawning all over him. H could barely stand them all being in close proximity let alone them actually touching and admiring him. The thought gave him a cold shiver down his spinal array and he humphed. He supposed it wasn't too bad a thought really. He could make use of their fawning and manipulate them to get what he wanted, perhaps even try and get away from freefall again permanently.

Being reduced to the state of a compliant prisoner was not making him happy. He did in no way appreciate it and did not want to be here amongst these disgusting flesh creatures, _'But still,'_ he continued thinking about his latest idea watching several human females pass and wave, or wink or point and comment on his fine form, _'I suppose these female fleshlings do have good taste and appreciation in my superior form.'_ He smirked and sat back in his chair and put his hands up behind his head. Sitting back and relaxing like this was different for him as he was more used to being on missions and scoping out targets as a soldier when he used to use his old Pretender shell.

It was an entirely different experience for him now, not being a Decepticon Air Commander, and not being a soldier either.

He had though also about something Skywarp had said to him. He was not keen on the idea that so many of his former comrades had apparently abandoned the Decepticon creed, and they had been returned to life. But Skywarp had said Ella provided for them with a level of luxury they had not been afforded as Decepticon soldiers and that part did interest him; he wondered just how much luxury could be gotten to serve his personal agenda.

Freefall had decided they had spent enough time in one spot and so she motioned for him to get up and move with her. He objected with a huff and eventually followed suit, he really had nothing better to do as he was still a prisoner. He sighed to himself and followed Freefall unwillingly amongst the humans shopping. He might as well gather information or intelligence that might be useful from the humans.

They ended up in the main part of town, in the shopping area. He was unaware that others who knew his face were close by. Laura and her two friends, Ryan and Christine, were around. Laura stopped for a moment, as Starscream walked straight by her in the opposite direction, and turned around to look at him to make sure she wasn't seeing things.

She hadn't believed it at first, but then went to see for herself yet again. She had been told about what he had done when she had been treated by Heartia back at Dragon Valley Base afterwards from her wounds, as she didn't heal like Starscream did. She had inadvertently done what her mother had always taught her as a child, to never hold a grudge.

She was sure that whatever Starscream's intention had been before, she was fine with what he had done now and not permanently hurt and so she let the incident slip.

Back on Cybertron.

After a fair amount of time for reuniting and gossiping with Prowl, the mech's had moved to the rec room upstairs, where some others were taking time outs after all the work it had taken for the clean up. Some had come straight here from the repair bay in the medilab to rest and relax, with some others had gone to their quarters for now for recharge.

Most of Ella's team were here but they were getting ready to make their trip back home.

Ella was sitting down at a smaller table thinking about recent events. But she also touched her nose to make sure the injury had healed properly being that her energy levels were acting weird.

Rayleigh watched her. "Doesn't that hurt when you heal?"

"If by that fact you mean can I feel the molecular structure rebinding itself when it refabricates heals, then yes, yes it does, Ray, but I don't feel pain the way you humanoids do, remember? I feel a sensation of a dysfunction and my body will move to repair it, but in this case, Vanessa's punch also affected my healing system. She channels a lot of electro-static energy through her punches, you know, That's where her strength comes from, it's only temporary, not a constant like Burnout's is and it can disrupt my system when used with enough force. It is only minor though, I will be back to normal soon." she replied.

"You know, I'd forgotten about that," said Hailey, who was on Ella's other side.

Some of the Roughnecks, who had been fixed, were in their Biomodes at the tables watching events elsewhere in the room. Sideswipe and Burnout were yet again wrestling with each other. Ella saw what was going on, and wondered exactly what was going through Burnout's mind.

"You know, you'd better watch those two, El', they may not be showing it but I know there is more going on there than either of them can see, and you know she has a penchant for breaking that rule of yours, either that or before you know, you'll have little sparklings of theirs all over the place!" stated Heather.

"Thanks, He'r." Ella paused to think to herself for a moment. "I'm aware of what may or may not happen with those two, but you've got to remember, Sideswipe's a brother first and femmes second kind of mech. At least he was when there were still enough femmes around her in Cybertron before the war broke out."

"Using that all knowing sense of your again?" muses Heather.

Ella smiles at her friend. "Of course."

Ella remembered back to when she first put forward that rule about no fraternizing between her active team and the rest she had at her disposal. She'd also had a firm word to everyone on the Dragon Valley Base, before the Autobots had shown up to visit the first time. She did not want any trouble like Burnout had caused the last time, and so she had made the rule as a result. But Burnout wasn't the only one. There were others, as relationships between males and females were often inevitable, and she remembered some of the encounters from her own past, thinking of her sons.

She had eventually given up trying to enforce it and let the rule slide, as she could se that pairings between her female team and the Autobots would become inevitable as Cybertron had no femmes left bar Arcee. And who was she to deny them her Deltronian allies some harmless friendships that may or may not develop into something else amongst them.

On Earth, Laura had caught up with Freefall and Starscream.

Freefall was one she was always wary of. Even though the Commander had once been a member of the Roughnecks, as Laura had found out, she had also once been a member of the Dominion. But not only that, she had once been at the forefront of the Dominion's battle with the Alliance ion the past as a Herald of Deukalion.

It was information that she had managed to get out of a few of the femmes on the Roughnecks team when they were at the base on night drinking. She had been visiting for medical checks and the subject was tossed around, so she had decided to ask about it, getting more information than she had bargained for.

The truth that Freefall had been one of four of the most powerful warriors the Dominion had at the time when Ella and the others of the Alliance had battled to seal Decellion up all that time ago was astounding. She had killed so many ruthlessly and coldly, and yet here she was. A friend at Ella's side. She would have to take it up with Ella one day and ask her exactly what it was that led to the defection of the once proud and dark warrior.

Ella had assured everyone else that Freefall had turned good for all their sakes. But still the older mech's had trouble trusting her at times due to her past, her dark demeanour and cold expressionless face.

Laura shook of the feeling and approached the couple as they were walking down the street.

When she called out to them, both had been surprised, not actually expecting to run into anyone they would be recognised by. Freefall had deliberately stayed away from places where familiar faces would be so it would give them some peace.

"And what do you want human?" asks Starscream, recognising the youngling as one he had met at the Dragon Valley.

Laura thought to play a game by being sarcastic and seeing if it would get his attention, "I just came to bask in your glorious radiance, oh wise and illustrious warrior."

Starscream hadn't gotten it yet that she was being sarcastic and took it to mean she was being serious, but only until Freefall had failed to suppress an amused snort that he turned and sneered at the human for her unappreciated mockery of him.

'I wasn't joking about all of it though," she mused, "you don't look all that bad as a human Starscream. You should sit back and enjoy your time here on Earth as one of us as much as you can; it's an experience you won't soon forget."

Starscream was just about to give her a piece of his mind when he noticed Freefall's expression, "Oh and what are you going to do about it?" he knew she may decide to do something physical to him again if he spoke out.

"I doubt comrade thet you vould like to receive beating by femme in public?" she mused.

Whereas he just sneered at her, just itching to dare her to do it so he could show her how superior he was to her. He had not yet had the chance of a full one on one fight with this femme and wanted to test his abilities against hers. While she had been keeping herself up until now, busy with paperwork, or with training new recruits she had been assigned, she barely even raised a hand to him. But for some reason her presence alone to him was rather intimidating on occasions, it reminded him of Megatron and his sneer became even more pronounced at the thought of his old Commander.

Laura's two friend's had caught up with them and decided to join the femme and her 'guest'. They immediately recognized him for who he was.

The extra company bothered Starscream. He still didn't like the close proximity to more humans. He tolerated Freefall and the youngling due to one being a transformer and the other being a cyborg, but that was it.

It was bad enough that Laura's friend kept on leering at him. "Stop staring." He kept telling her, getting even more annoyed by the second as the small group continued to travel around town.

"I can't help it if you look so damn good!" mused Christine.

He snorted and tolerated her admiration of him, but she crossed the line when she grabbed him by the arm, "Get off you insipid meatbag youngling. I'm not some toy you can grab at your leisure!"

Although a part of him did want to destroy the human for annoying him, he found that some part of his program wouldn't allow that desire to be fulfilled, and wondered just how many changes had been made to his system. This desire got beaten back into submission completely when Freefall had told him off and said to bear the pain of humiliation for a while longer.

Ryan was staring at him, still unable to believe that this humanoid machine was actually a former soldier of the Decepticon army. Starscream had, already more than once, threatened Ryan for staring, but he just couldn't help himself. "So, he really is who you say he is, Laura?" he asked his friend.

"Yep," she replied, handing Starscream a drink of Coke.

Starscream looked at Laura blankly, "What in the Infernal am I supposed to do with this?"

Christine snickered at Starscream's reaction to something as common as a can of soda. She took the can, popped the lid and handed it back to him. "You're supposed to drink it," she replied amusingly. She turned to Laura and asked, "Can they digest that stuff?"

"Should be, some of the femmes on the base drink it. Helps clear stuff off the inside of their metal parts and some other things." Laura returned to finishing her own drink, smiling while she was doing so.

Ryan watched Starscream drink the soda, who was spluttering over the taste and sensation of the bubbly soda going down his fuel intake.

Ryan asks, "Are you sure he's supposed to be drinking that stuff? I thought these guys drank Energon, or whatever it's called?"

Laura sighed, she realised Ryan hadn't been listening to what she and Christine had just been talking about so she repeated it for him. "Yeah, sure it's fine, Ry', the biomodes are able to process basic fluids. Coke is good 'cause it helps to clean their inner mechanisms."

Christine, still looking at Starscream, marvelled as he consumed the Coke, and she continued to giggle, especially at his facial expressions. Ryan was also glaring slightly, as was Freefall with a calm bemused expression. _'There mey be some hope for him yet.'_ She thinks to herself.

Back on Cybertron, Ella and Optimus were having a private conversation. They were in a private room away from the rest of the other Autobots. Optimus was curious about the visions he had had when he had touched the core component of Ella's previously. "In a way, I was half expecting Prowl or one of the others to turn up, don't ask me how, it just felt right when I saw him walk towards us. I felt kind of relieved at his return." he queried to her.

Ella smirked. "Well, not hard to see though, was it? You hadn't seen any future events, Optimus; it was the memory engrams in that piece of core material working with your connection to the Matrix that allowed you to see into it. You were actually seeing information from my own memories."

Optimus was both shocked and not really surprised at the information she was giving him. "You are referring to that gem, I take it?" He paused while she nodded.

Ella could almost have sworn he was wearing a smile behind his battle mask.

"Dare I ask, but will any more of my dead soldiers be popping up from the grave?"

Ella smiled, thinking about how much the Earth language had affected not only Optimus' vocal responses, but also many of the other Autobots she had met and conversed with, "Only time will tell." She replied wisely. "Why do you ask? What else did you see?"

"Some of the things I saw didn't make any sense to me at all, some did, but I'm assuming the things I didn't understand would make sense to you wouldn't they?" he replied.

She saw the strained look on his face and asked, "There was something there about Elita, wasn't there?"

"Yes." He paused. "Yes, there was."

Ella allowed Optimus to dwell on his own thoughts. Elita and Optimus had been very close, and the fact she had been terminated, unable to be saved by him some years ago by a Decepticon raid, still grained on his conscience.

Hopefully whatever he saw would help to alleviate some of that grief. She knew many others would return, but she didn't know when or in what form. She smiled and left him to wonder about it and made her way back out to where the others were.

While she walked, she wondered what had happened with Hot Rod. She supposed that the sudden influx of energy through her body from her transformation had changed him through their now linked systems, but she wasn't exactly sure. Her previous report from Freefall had indicated of a power surge through Starscream also. She was linked to both of them, so if the surge had worked on Starscream, then why not Hot Rod too.

Outside the medical bay area Rodimus had joined Kup, and was watching him finish off the last of the reports. "Don't forget to include on that thing that I'm back in business again," he said to his mentor.

"Yeah, I will," Kup replied. He typed in the last line, saved the data and then turned around to Rodimus. "So what do you think caused it, lad?" He motioned to Rod's new body shell.

"How am I supposed to know? One nano klik I was myself, then the next I was a Prime again, but without the Matrix of course!" he mused, still obviously youthful in his personality, only just changed in form. "I mean, I don't mind it so much, but still I'd love to have my old Lamborghini Diablo alt mode back. Besides I'm just as curious to know what happened as you are old mech."

At that moment, Prowl walked in with Vanguard, who had returned to her robot mode some time earlier. Ella came in not too far behind them and gave both Kup and his young charge a nod. Ella remarked to herself on the change and smiled, not letting the two see her expression.

Kup and Rodimus were going to ask Prowl and Vanguard some questions, but then Jazz stuck his head in. "Hey all, we're headin' out, you comin'?"

They instead decided to follow Jazz out to the landing pad.

Outside, Ella surveyed the damage to the place.

Optimus commented that it would take a fair while for the mess of the battle to be cleaned up, since the fight had been so widespread.

Ella suggested to Optimus that a small team of representatives from his force should travel to Alliance Central and put forward their case for extra protection of Cybertron, in the event of future attacks from the Dominion. She had also told him that she would send along some of her soldiers as well.

He thought it a good idea.

She mentioned that they might also consider trying to get a permanent alliance going. "It would certainly help with any extra reinforcements for any future confrontations. If they agree to allow Cybertron to join the planetary Alliance, then you'll be able to ask for reinforcements at any time, if they're available. And get help at any time for damages and disasters, should any arise from time to time. It sure looks like Cybertron would benefit from it. Hopefully the civil war you're currently having won't be a turnoff for them."

Optimus turns to his soldiers present and asks. Most were fervent in trying to have a go a persuading the Alliance council to get some extra help, while others weren't as enthusiastic, not really knowing how the Alliance would actually react.

After thinking about it, Optimus made a choice. He would take a small group with him to the Alliance council's home world to plead Cybertron's case and get as much help as he could, if they would give any. He would leave Ultra Magnus and the main bulk behind to assist with clean up.

He assured his younger sibling that he would check in from time to time to see how the work proceeded and would keep him updated on the progress on Alpha Prime.

While Jazz and his team, along with the Dinobots, would head back to Earth.

Ella split up her team; some would be going back to the Alliance with her mother, Nova and her friends, and the rest would go back to Earth.


	19. Chapter 19 A Night On The Town

A Night On The Town

After the long trip back to Earth, Ella and her mechs were tired and wanted to rest and recharge. The ones who had returned with her had all gone to their quarters on the base or to the rec room to relax.

The Autobots, being the ones who owned the ship, dropped them off on the way through, then continued onto their own base further south.

Ella, along with her remaining femme team, all went to Dragon Valley Base; as well as Ella's visiting soldiers, Rayleigh, and her mech Firefly, Stretch and her mech Strongarm, Heather, her sister Hailey and Hailey's mech Highway, and Peter, who was now relegated to being called Prowl half the time, and also the young mech scientist Crashcourse.

Ella had sent Sound Track to the Alliance to act as an emissary, along with Ranger, Timewarp, and Joyride, and with Optimus Prime and his team, which included Red Alert, Perceptor, Bluestreak, Skyfire, Skids and Inferno.

Ella had just settled into her office after telling everyone to take the next week off, when Vanguard and Prowl walked into her office in their relative Biomodes; while Heather, Hailey and Highway remained by the open door. She looked at the two as they entered, but then sat back in her chair and sighed. She could see the look on Vanguard's faceplate, and asked, "Can't this wait till later, Van? I'm not going to take an apology from you about my broken nose, ok?" She knew her expressions of guilt all too well and how to deal with them.  
Vanessa looked at her. "Well, I'm gonna give ya one anyways."  
"No, you are not." she stated quickly, before Vanessa could speak. "Pete, take your...wife, call the others out and go chat with your old friends...go out for  
the night or something."

Ella knew Peter was uneasy about taking the time off. He had been working with her son on his new project and wanted to get it done. He argued with her over taking the time off and in the end she gave up and let him have his way. He swiftly kissed Vanessa and his daughters' goodbye and left. So it was left to Vanessa to do some organising for the night out.

She watched as Vanessa left and noticed Hailey and Heather at the door. "You too, Hailey, go shoo, but I want to chat with your big sister for a bit?"  
Heather moved into the room and the door closed as Hailey and her mech walked off. "This has certainly been an eventful set of days, hasn't it?" Heather asked.  
"It has at that!" Ella replied amusingly. "Have you thought any more  
about coming back as an active member, He'r? You know we could use your good talents here."  
Heather looked at Ella disapprovingly. "The fact I'm reluctant to get involved with the soldiers' politics again, like last time. That was one of the reasons I left, remember?"  
"But you came back." Ella remembered for a moment the events that had led to the death of Heather's husband, and the reasons for her leaving Earth for a time and only just recently coming back here to her home planet. "Perhaps if you were to be based here with my team when you aren't working at the local school? I noticed you had gotten yourself a job there as a music teacher."

"That was your son's idea." She replied, "Adam has something up his sleeves again! So I went along with it thinking it'd be fun to be around humans again on a day to day basis, and the teacher thing to younger kids suits me anyhow."

"Well the offer still stands at any time you want to come back and take up your old job. We often have younglings come through here with their parents who might benefit from some of your particular teaching talents too you know."

Heather smiled, "Don't worry, I'll drop in when I can to help with them. You know how I love to be around kids of any species. But for now, let's just see what your son is up to eh?"

Ella knew very well that her son had his own agenda. One that she didn't get involved in most of the time. Recently he had started contacting some of her old friends and placed them in strategic parts of Port Angeles. Time would only tell what he had in mind this time.

"Ok well I'll leave you to it. You can go and join your mother and the team at the club tonight if you want."

Heather thought, "I will think about it." Leaving, she passed another mech on her way into Ella's office.  
The visiting mech walked in, a femme transformer named Jumpstart, in her Biomode. She was dragging another mech called Starscream, also in his Biomode, into Ella's office, _'Obviously,'_ she thought, _'He must have done something again to tick off Juno!' _She sighed to herself.  
Ella was none too surprised at this. In the few days that they had been back, Starscream quite often got into arguments, both verbal and physical with the other residents who he refused to get along with him. She wandered if he was deliberately acting out over his incarceration, being kept base bound most of the time would drive anyone balmy as he was himself a jet.

She had allowed Freefall to let Starscream join her in her teams' aerial combat training manoeuvres recently, which had quietened him some but he was still being obstinate and demanding, as was his nature.

"I demand you unhand me at once femme! If I had my weapons I would deal with you properly." He screeched.

"But you don't so bad luck shorty." Juno wasn't exactly a short girl, nor was she soft. In her Biomode she was as tall and bulky as Rusty was, but it was clear you could see her family resemblance to her younger sisters, Joyride, Sound Track and Flashdance. She was a military mech back in the Deltronian system and her alt mode was a carrier helicopter, being here on leave to visit her partner who worked here at Dragon Valley base. Her mate Warblade, a member of Freefall's team, and also their daughter unit Switchblade, also on Freefall's team.

She raised a brow at his being manhandled by the female Autobot. "That's enough, Juno, leave him. I'll take it from here." She wasn't interested in what he had done this time. She was more interested in trying to get him rehabilitated.

It had been the decision of the Alliance council to pair them together to try and help him, being that she also had to send progress reports back to the Alliance at certain stages. She couldn't afford right now to spend all her time with him and so had relegated some rehabilitation to Freefall.

Freefall had experience dealing with rehabilitated Decepticons, being that her own personal team was nearly full of them, both Deltronian and Cybertronian alike, it was what she was good at, coming from a darker background herself, she knew just what to do to help others become a somewhat better mechanoid.

The other mech left, the door closing behind her. Starscream sat down in the nearest chair. "You enjoyed yourself, did you, on your little trip outside the base last week?" she asked.

He didn't look at her; he didn't even respond. He was more annoyed that his latest idea to rid himself of the confines of this base had failed and he had been caught and mechhandled by that behemoth of a military femme.

Without any weapons and also a new collar he had no chance against her bulk and strength.

Starscream turned from Ella's direction and peered at the monitors against the wall. It was a smaller version of what as in the control room so that Ella could view them from here while doing her paperwork.

It kept him interested until she sidled up behind him and started massaging his shoulders.

"Don't touch…" was all he got out before he let out a groan and began to relax.

"You always look a bit too tense 'Starion. You need to calm down and just relax." He remembered that it was that name she used to call him a long time ago when she had been undercover as a Cybertronian mech. She was one of the very few femmes he had been fond of before the war and had always been an interesting conversationalist with himself and Jetfire.

And at the time, never understood why she had suddenly disappeared, thinking she had abandoned him and their friendship. One of the reasons he never took to any other femmes after that. She was unable to tell him at the time that she had to go and do some other work and so had abruptly left Cybertron without saying a word to anyone about anything.

She had been like a mother to him, not realising that the alignment between their sparks was a mother and son connection for real.

Starscream had lost his spark creators at a very young age and had grown accustomed to doing what he wanted and getting what he wanted without any parental guidance. He personally saw to it that everything came to him the way he wanted it to, but still, recognition from his peers, the attention he thought he deserved for all his achievements and endeavours, even now, still elude him.

Ella had come along into his life and encouraged him to tackle the sciences and helped him with whatever he needed to pursue it, as well as introducing him to Jetfire. She became a very close personal friend of his, but when the war broke out, she disappeared, his friend Jetfire backed off from involvement in the war and he was left alone again like it was as a youngling, just as it was in the home he grew up in, with no one to rely upon but himself.

After that he had joined the Decepticons to further his career to new heights and came to be where he is today, but still no closer to getting what he really wanted and also no longer a Decepticon warrior.

He did miss Ella's company, having found out who she really was when he got to the base. He had initially been angry at her, but long conversations between the both of them when they had a chance to talk, proved to re-establish their old friendship. Right now he was revelling in the comfort and so just sat back and enjoyed it, one of those rare moments of relaxation; he never got as a warrior and a soldier.

Ella was amused, "Better?" she asks, getting a somewhat satisfied grunt out of him, "You still haven't changed much, have you, Starion?" She never called him that outside of being alone with her, and he was grateful. He didn't feel that he needed to suffer any indignity at a pet name that only she used to call him a long time ago, that no one else knew about anyway.  
Starscream looked up at her. She was directly behind his chair and looked back down at him. He hated the fact she had worn away part of him and gave her a scornful look. She always did know just how to get him calm and composed. "Don't worry!" she said ruffling his Biomodes hair, "We're not turning you soft, in fact, we may even get you back to being a soldier again some time soon."

This new information got him interested and he gave her a quizzical look, "What are you talking about?" he asks, but she just smiled and then let her office, leaving him to think about what she had just said.

Going down to the rec room, Ella found one of their Autobot comrades who had stayed behind, much to the chagrin of his Targetmaster partner, who had seemingly found himself a friend in Felicia and had wandered off to do some scientific research with her in her laboratory while he was here.

Rodimus' form for the moment was his old Prime self, but he was still pretty much Hot Rod on the inside. He had chosen to remain behind on the shuttle when the Autobots dropped off the Roughnecks and their friends here, as he wanted some more answers from Ella about his current situation. He approached Ella when he saw her enter the rec room.  
She had seen him, but chose to get herself a drink first. "Is there something I can help you with, Rod?"  
"Yeah, maybe there is. Sunstar was telling me you might be able to help me change back, if it's possible?" he said.  
Ella smiled to herself. "Now why would I want to change you back? You look perfectly fine the way you are!" She flirted.

She didn't know why exactly she was acting the way she was with him, but she did admire his personality and the way he carried himself. It reminded her of her deceased husband so much, it almost made her want to cry because she missed Rodine like a rupture in her core, but she let the momentary emotion pass by.  
He smiled back, thinking what she said was a compliment. "Well, thanks, but I'd like to go back to being my old self, if you don't mind. And then there's my Targetmaster partner Firebolt, I can barely even feel him in my head any more. Has that got something to do with the virus that's in my system now?"  
"As a matter of fact, it does. And it's not a virus. Your system has now been changed on a molecular level. I can't explain to you exactly how being exposed to my blood directly has changed your tech systems, but if you want to change back, you can do it yourself." Ella stated.  
Rodimus just looked down at himself and put his arms out. "How am I...?"  
But before he could continue, Ella interrupted him. "Well, the first thing being, you," she pointed to him, "are a Transformer, the second thing being, the virus has laced your system with nanyte cells, more of them than you've ever had in your system before, ultimately changing your transform functions closer to that of my kind, rather you're your own. All you have to do is think about what you want to be, and it'll happen. At least that's how it's supposed to work; the effect can be different for everyone." He looked at her quizzically, and she called over Sunstar, who was close by. "For example, Stella? Your Biomode if you please?"

Sunstar nodded her head and shifted the nanyte cells in her robot mode, to that of her Biomode.  
Ella commented, "See, it's that simple, although these ladies had their Biomodes designed for them; you still have the memory of being 'Hot Rod' in your system, as well as that synthoid program. You remember that incident, don't you?"  
He raised a brow at the mention of that little episode in the past with that human  
businessman, Victor Drath. He had almost forgotten about that. He, Arcee, Springer and Ultra Magnus had all been trying to forget that incident. They had learned the hard way back then that not all humans were the same, and they weren't as safe from them as they had thought.  
Rodimus sighed. "How can I forget?" He switched off his optics for a moment, and thought about his more youthful self. The shift came quickly and painlessly, although he admitted to himself that he could feel every part of him shift along with the transformation, definitely a new sensation for him.

He switched on his optics again, and looked into the mirrored wall next to him. He saw his old 'Hot Rod' self. He asked Ella, "Well, how do I look?"  
She laughed at the confidence he had in himself. It reminded her so much of her deceased husband, that she had to hide her face in her drink. "Could it even be possible that you look better than before, dare I say it, look even better than Sunstreaker?"  
At that moment, Burnout and Landslide walked into the rec room and started talking to Ella. She was grateful for the change in subject, and asked them what they were up to.

Rockslide answered her in her Asian accent. "We talk to Vanguard and book out the club for tomorrow night, and we all go out for fun." she said, giving Ella a thumbs up.  
Burnout noticed Hot Rod was back to normal, and asked, "So, hot stuff, are ye goin' to ask ye friends along te our li'l party?"  
Hot Rod retorted back, "What?! You mean just Sideswipe, or all of my friends!?"  
Burnout gave him a raised brow and then smirked. She put her hands on her hips and said confidently, "All ye friends cannae handle me at once, lad!"  
A few laughs came from around the room, as the Roughneck's members knew what a handful Burnout could be, even on her own, but none were aware of the joke she had indicated.  
Burnout moved over to the bar for a drink of energon, where Ella was sitting. However, Ella was aware of what Burnout was referring to, and said quietly to her, 'I wouldn't worry too much about my old rule Rusty. I've decided to let it go for now. There's no point in keeping it up, not anymore. Not with everything that has happened recently."  
Burnout enjoyed herself with a very hearty laugh. "Like tha' would've stopped me b'fore anyway lass, rules or nae rules!" she said with a very sly grin.  
Ella could do nothing but smile, _'Yep, this was Rusty, pure and simple!'_ She had always tried in vain to get Burnout to behave herself in the past, but with this new development she had gone ahead and changed her mind.

Burnout had just made a point that she may have already broken it with Sideswipe, but who really knew for sure, not that it mattered anymore. She wondered who else had also crossed that old line.

The next night, all of Ella's remaining Roughnecks members went to the local club called 'Mechisma'. The place was situated in Port Angeles, a small city to the north of them.

And being that Landslide, in her human Biomode, owned the club, she had booked it out for the night. It was relatively large, as it had been designed to accommodate for average, full-sized mechanoids, as well as human-sized individuals. The main atrium was three stories high, and encompassed the dance floor with separate areas for both humans and mechs, and spanned a couple of blocks. It was enormous. Though it was not only a nightclub but also a show arena for various events that went on in town every once in a while. It served mainly as a club at night and into the early hours of the morning.  
The humans that were now present at the club were either there by special invitation, or were friends of Ella's, or knew who the Roughnecks were.  
The first thing that Jazz had noticed when he and his comrades had entered was that the crowd of humans present were none too bothered by the Cybertronians being there. They had obviously seen transformers before, he thought, but still none had looked in their direction too much, just a few glances here and there, and murmurs of new mechs, from the humans, was all he got. They had come in from downstairs in the garage area, and he told the others to mingle and enjoy themselves for the night.  
The others who had come along with him were the twins, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, as well as Tracks, Bumblebee, Hot Rod, Hound, Blaster, and even Grimlock, had joined them. Those that didn't want to come had remained behind at Autobot City, for customary duties for the night. All these mechs here had the night off.

Tracks had even invited his friend Raul along, who quickly disappeared amongst the human crowd to mingle.  
Blaster was enjoying the rock music immensely, and had ejected all his smaller mech cassettes to have fun along with the others who had been invited along that night.  
The members of the Roughnecks who had come along were being spoken to by the head of security, a human cyborg who they all knew simply as 'Murphy'. He had known Ella for years, as she had known his grandparents, who had once worked for Ella's business company, Drake Corp.

He now ran the Club as head of Security when Rei Lin Xsiang, Landslides human persona, couldn't do it herself.

He knew who she was and what she got up to, so he was fine with picking up the slack.

His new Deltronian transformer partner was here tonight also, taking in the sight and sound of an Earth nightclub he'd never been to before. He was up in the back corner happily chatting away to some human females that were present tonight.

Murphy had already warned several people in the crowd, as he moved around the club, about their behaviour and had zeroed in on Burnout when he had first spotted her. "I don't want no trouble from you tonight, okay, Rusty?" He said sternly, as he pointed up at her. She did her customary 'who me' routine with him, and he continued, "Don't make me bring my new buddy Armstrong in here to sort you out?"  
It was then that she quietly backed down. She knew the name and his reputation, having had run ins with this mech in particular back in the Delta system in bar fights. The mech was a gentle giant, but gave his all in a fight, Armstrong had nearly beaten the slag out of her with his immense strength till he had realised she was a femme. His weak spot apparently was being gentle with femmes, but hadn't known Burnout was one as she looked like a mech at times. It was when someone pointed it out to him at the time that he backed off and profusely apologized.

She didn't make a fuss of it, but did buy him a drink for giving her one hell of a fight that she soon wouldn't forget. An occasion that would make her wary of him if they ever met up again.

Armstrong caught her optics and waved back at her familiar face.

She waved back and grinned. Burnout was tough and strong, but not as much as Murphy's new mech partner. Armstrong was kind hearted like Murphy, but he was bigger, more powerful and stronger than Burnout, and he was also a weapons master. He was a retired soldier and had come to Earth looking for some work to occupy his retirement. Even though he was an old scratched up mech with a battle worn paint coat, he was still a mech to be reckoned with and also a very gentle soulful individual, despite all his years as both a soldier and a special operations officer.  
Murphy noticed some hooligans giving a female friend of his some trouble, who wouldn't leave her alone, so he left to help. "Knock it off you two, or you're out the door!" He yelled from across the room over the top of the music.

The two hooligans happened to be from Adam Drake's group. Two individuals who were working as private security on the nearby military base working on some project he knew Adam was involved in.

One was very drunk, as Murphy could see, and obviously not inclined to want to listen. He had recalled seeing their pictures on the invite list; they were called Skyler Warren and Taylor Carson.

He knew Skylar was the more troublesome one and Taylor the sombre quiet one and so he focused his attention on Skylar and went over personally to apprehend them after they first ignored him.  
The woman they were bothering was someone he recognized. She was the new Dean of Science at the local Port Angeles University, where some of the students, who came here on other nights, went to. Her name was Professor Cassandra Mason, a former co-worker of his when he worked in some special operations with Adam Drake.

She was a notable scientist known the world over, and also had several PhD's under her belt in various fields of science. Though some wondered why she had come here to this sleepy little place in northern Washington State. The answer was simple; she also had a mech partner, Rockslide, whom she had affectionately called Rocky.

He was the elder brother of Roughnecks member Landslide, and also had an Asian accent, specifically a Japanese one, and his vehicle mode was that of a green Subaru Outback wagon.  
Cassandra was usually seen outdoors with her best friend Rockslide and her pet - a Whippet dog called Pepper, but tonight he had been left at home; this was a club, after all.  
Landslide had been elsewhere, talking to his sister, when he had heard Murphy yelling at the hooligans. He rushed over to aid Cassandra, but Murphy had already gotten rid of them, they having moved to somewhere else in the club for fun and games. He thanked Murphy for the help. "Origato, Murphy-san." he said, bowing slightly.  
"S'ok, Rocky, glad to help!" Murphy called back, and then left to wander elsewhere around the club.  
Landslide felt bad leaving Cassandra alone. He hadn't left her side much over the last few years since her accident. She had been riding in his cab at the time, when a drunken truck driver had swiped them and almost totalled Rocky's chassis. He was repaired, but Cassandra was left a cripple. He had graciously offered spare metal from his own parts for her cybernetic replacements. She had her left leg and arm, her hip, part of her face and her left eye and ear, replaced with cybernetics. Not very many people knew about it, as she had kept it quiet and out of the news. Yet another human that Ella knew, and had helped.

And with the cybernetic replacements at the time, she had also been recruited into Ella's son Adam's special forces group but had since returned to her science career.  
Around the room, the party was in full swing. The Roughnecks members, all except Burnout, had adopted their Biomodes and were in various parts of the club. Felicia and Vanessa were up on the stage, as they had found two old friends, Harmony and Melody Delphine, who were in town taking a break from their latest entertainment venture. They were once members of the band 'Sorority House', and gladly filled in for Desonia and Casey in their absence.

These two females were also younger sisters to their triplet, Rhapsody, who was the religious leader of an alien race called the Delphinian. The two were currently using special technological masks to appear as humans while they were out in public.

They had both been in the past piloteers for Flashdance and Sound Track, as Casey's papillon friend had been to her, a piloteer being a human sized organic partner to the bigger transformers, much like the Headmasters and Targetmasters of Nebulon are to their respective transformer partners.

Dragon Valley Base.  
Heather had stayed behind, and still hadn't decided whether to accept Ella's offer. She had a chance to call and talk to Adam about it, letting him know what she thought and that she may take it up, but was still unsure.

Adam had assured her that it was fine if she decided not to follow through with his use for her, as it would be some time before she would be needed. He had said that if she wanted to use her spare time to assist his mother at her base then he would be fine with it and would get back to her when her needed use of her services.

As she wandered down to the rec room after making a call, she had noticed that there was an unusual visitor in the lower cargo areas on the way past a set of open doors leading to the lower depths of the base.

No one went down to these areas much, as it was where Flashdance kept some of her larger pets and animech creations, an area that Ella had relegated for her.

It was here that she discovered something rather interesting.

She wasn't old enough to have seen any real pirate ships when she was younger but this one did take her interest. She had remembered Ella mentioning that one of her cargo operatives from the Delphinian system had an Earth pirate ship as an alt mode, as well as two human cyborg partners.

She decided to forgo visiting the rec room and made her way down to this secluded area of the lower caves to investigate. It was indeed a very big ship, and at the moment from what she could see from her vantage point looking over a railing from above, it was being unloaded, cargo obviously for the Dragon Valley Base.

"She's a beauty ain't she mate!" called a voice from behind her.

Heather turned suddenly ready to start a fight if she needed to. Years of combat training kicking into gear.

"Whoah, aren't you a feisty lady eh!" muses the man.

"Who are you?" asks Heather as she calms down, realising the man was only trying to be friendly.

"The names Knight, Captain Knight. At your service my lady!" he says trying to be charming. He tried to take her hand to kiss it but she recoils.

She smiles and comments, "No need for that."

The Captain is momentarily distracted by his First mate calling out to him. "Captain, we're almost done. We just have to fill out the proper paperwork and we can get out of here."

It was at this mention of being nearly done that a voice bellows out from the ship itself and also slightly lurches making a few crew members on its deck, walk sideways to cope with the move, "Then hurry it up ye slow sea dogs. We got lotsa work ta do elsewhere if we be makin' it back in time for tha Delphinian Trade run. And if we don't make it then I'm gonna be one very unhappy pirate ship!"

"Ok Cannonball, just finishing the papers now and taking them upstairs to give to Ella, be right back." Replied an amused First mate as he wandered up the stairs to Heather and the Captain.

Heather is somewhat amused by the goings on, "Well I take it that your ship is called Cannonball."

"Yeah, he's one irate merchant. Sometimes I think he's our boss the way he carries on, not very a patient old mech, a real sea dog. And grouchy too mate." He comments.

"C'mon Captain hurry it up, stop talking to the local female wildlife like ye always do and let's get ready ta cast off as soon as First mate Slade gets back." Yelled out the irate and grumpy pirate ship.

Slade passes the two by and he tips his hat, "M'lady." And then quickly saunters off to deliver the papers.

"So I take it that the young man who just passed us is the First mate Slade?" she asks.

"That he is, both of us bein' full body cyborgs an all mate. I opted to keep all my human parts an' he wanted to look like a somewhat real Earth pirate and had his leg changed to that peg leg for effect, "The Captain laughed, "An' he's the best damn assistant I've ever had. Does all my work before I even ask him to do it. I'll have to give him a raise and a holiday sometime soon to pay him back for all he's done for me and me ship!"

"Your ship?" questions Cannonball. By now Heather had taken the arm that the Captain had offered and escorted him down to the dock to watch him set up for cast off.

"Shut it you, we can sort out who's the boss later!" mused the Captain.

"I belong ta meself thank ye very much!" replied the old ship, "I was doin' this merchant trade long before ye came along. If ya don't behave yeself Cap'n I'll make ya walk me plank!"

"Yeah whatever!" the Captain retorts. He has made his way onto the ship and had called out orders to everyone to begin launch procedures.

Heather had never heard anyone act that way on a sailing ship,_ 'Come to think of it?' _she thought, _'This is a closed in cave. How'd they even get in here?'_

It was when Slade came rushing back down and gotten onto the ship that Cannonball hastily started up what she recognized as hyperdrive engines. _'Cute. A Space freighter disguised as a pirate ship!'_

The Captain, his First mate and the ship itself all call out their goodbyes to Heather and then a field enveloped the ship and it disappeared into the hyperdrive field through subspace. She was used to the sight as she had driven many freighters herself while living and working in the Deltronian system before coming back home to Earth.

She sighed and shook her head at her unusual meeting and then went back upstairs to the rec room for some well earned relaxation.


	20. Chapter 20 Trouble In Paradise

Trouble In Paradise**  
**

Ella had gotten Freefall to begin her personal training for Starscream in a session for power streaming. She thought it would be easier for her friend to train him away from the others, as they were not yet ready to accept him as an equal, due to his inability to blend well with certain individuals on the base, namely Freefall's own team.

Freefall had not been happy about having to train with him separately, as it was Ella's idea, not hers to do so, but she put up with it for now.

She showed more grace and patience than she thought even she was capable of trying to put up with his insufferable behaviour and inability to co-operate with her.

He had made several rude remarks about it being a waste of time and that she should just let him go and train with the others, as he knew she had sent Nightfall out with the group for aerial training.

But she gave him a chance and waited, showing him what it was all about, in a way he would understand, and in a way that it would appeal to him, from a scientific point of view.

He had scanned every aspect of how it was done from Freefall and listened to all her explanations, but still thought it was a waste of his precious time.

Ella had previously explained to him as a side note that when he had been rebuilt with her kind of technology, he had gained the capability to use this power streaming. Though he had yet to show any kind of energy projective abilities, he was still learning very quickly. He was actually doing surprisingly well, however. As both a scientist and a warrior, he had first scoffed at the ability and called it nonsense, not believing in any kind of magical hocus pocus, as he called it. That was until he started to show some natural ability with it, and then took the proverbial horse by the reins.  
Ella left the two of them alone to continue their training session and went back to her daily duties on the base. When she returned to her office however she had to immediately answer an incoming phone call.

It was one of the base residents, Rayleigh Wheeler. She had gone to pick up her English daughter, Hannah, from the international airport in Port Angeles. But upon return to the house upstairs, above the base, she rang Ella to let her know what was going on.

Her daughter Hannah was from a previous marriage with an Evan Lancaster. He lived on a large horse racing establishment somewhere in England. Both he and his elder brother ran their international racing business from there. Hannah, under the courts agreement following Rayleigh's divorce from Evan, had to share the girl with her ex partner. Though her father wasn't too thrilled with it, he took her in on her summer holidays and then sent her back when school returned to session.

But that was her early years of high school while she was living in the States. Now she was in college and had just finished her final years of training at a mechanical college in London and was returning home to the States again.

She had been lucky enough also to do part of her course with a world renowned Formula One driver Racquel De La Croix, who inadvertently happened to be Sound Track's older sister, Rocket, in disguise as a human race car driver.

Ella had suggested to Rayleigh if perhaps Hannah might want to have some fun, she could take her by the club to enjoy her return with the rest of the group from the base for the night and perhaps make herself some new friends.

Rayleigh agreed after asking Hannah on the other end of the phone, she had stated that she wasn't tired from any jetlag and going out would be fun. They ended up taking the new car Rayleigh had bought Hannah in celebration of her graduation, it was an older model of Ferrari, but one Hannah had always liked, a Ferrari California, only about 5 years old and in bright cherry red, her favourite.

Ella had finished all her paperwork rather quickly and had gone for a wander around the base. It was relatively quiet that night, save for the various mechs working in and around the base to clean, replace stores and generally hang out in the rec room to relax, as not all had gone down to the club for the fun.

Most were always working or just passing through to have any interest in the Autobots and their war with the Decepticons here on Earth, they generally stayed undercover and came here to Dragon Valley base in secret, as many were neutrals and wanted no part of it. Some however were ex-military, and quite often, could be found conversing with the various Autobot visitors who came through here on a regular basis now to visit her team of femmes.

She supposed in a way it was good that the Deltronian and Cybertronian mechs had begun to get along, as they may end up being able to do more with them than just chat here in her base on Earth. She hoped that the talk Optimus Prime was going to give the Alliance council would go well.

Maybe the introduction of the Deltronian femmes to Cybertron might also help to repopulate their species as she knew that by now, the Quintessons had done away with most femmes on Cybertron. And they had done it so they could control their species initially, only with the Cybertronians ending up forcing them off the planet and into space.

She knew they were currently residing on their other home world of Quintessa. It was where they had lived before they had invaded Cybertron all those years ago after the war with her people pretty much decimated the population and sent the planet into shutdown, inadvertently leaving it open to be invaded by the Quintesson species and leading to the development of the now dominant life forms on Cybertron, known to most as Transformers.

After Ella had done a check and was satisfied that there was no trouble, she went down to the control room to see who was rostered on to monitor the base. Once there she let them know that she was going out for a while and then slipped out quietly, taking one of her custom cars, a dark brown 1955 Crown Victoria sedan, from her private collection and headed down to the club to join everyone else for the night.

After landing, everyone pretty much parted their ways to go and do different things. Warhammer had returned home for repairs, and had said her goodbyes to her two mech daughters, Sound Track and Joyride. Nova had gone with Bonecrusher to the other area of the council chambers, namely the communications directorate, and Sound Track, with everyone else, went to the politics directorate.  
In the central business area of the Alliance council chambers, Sound Track and the others met up with some representatives. While on route Sound Track, being that she was very familiar with the PR side of the Alliance council, had contacted some friends before landing and asked for an audience with someone from the council.

Of Sound Track's team, it was only herself that was still remaining. Her three other companions, her younger sister Joyride, and her two other team mates, Ranger and Timewarp, had all been sent off to go and get some supplies to bring back home with them. Joyride had wanted to stay with her sister, but Sound Track had sent her off with the others.

When they entered the council area, they were all checked and had their weapons taken temporarily, until they left the area again. Upon entering the pavilion, the visiting Cybertronians were awestruck at all the different races present, which had been called for a particular general meeting. Sound Track had smirked to herself that they had managed, by sheer luck, to be visiting at a time when the meeting was going on. At these meetings, representatives from all the planets would be here.

Staring around, the Autobots noticed the differences between all the races, humanoid, mechanoid, reptilian, aquatic and invertebrates, all called here for the meeting.  
Other than Bluestreak and Skyfire, the team members Optimus had put together were Perceptor, Red Alert, Skids and Inferno, who all had experience in dealing with councils, as they were once members of the former Cybertronian council that the Decepticon Shockwave had elected on Cybertron in the past, and so were prepared for whatever may come, or so Optimus thought.

Going up against councils was not something Optimus liked doing very much as he had his own way of doing things now that he had been involved in the war for so very long.

He usually left council proceedings and formalities up to Prowl and Jazz in the old days, having had to rely more on help from his younger brother now, Ultra Magnus since Prowl had originally been lost to them in 2005 when the Decepticons sprung a surprise attack on one of their shuttles returning to Earth, not only terminating Prowl, but several others in the process, and a few more after that tumultuous battle thereafter.

And Jazz, he had sent him back to Earth as he was technically the active Commander of Autobot City. He supposed he would replace Jazz one of these days and have him reassigned to Cybertron and allow Ultra Magnus to take back his position at the City, having had to remove him to help out with some business here on Cybertron.

In the new Dominion sector, namely on the planet Charr, the fortress that the Dominion had promised Galvatron was finished, and had been done so faster than Galvatron had thought possible.

He now surveyed their handiwork; the whole thing had been built exactly to the specifications he had asked for, utilizing all the technology the Dominion builders had to offer and he marvelled at the speed with which they had finished the work, _'If only my soldiers could work this quickly and efficiently. I would have won the war against Optimus and his Autobots vorns ago.'_  
The construction had been completed while he and his soldiers, as well as Decellion, Death Strike, and what was left of Decellion's personal warriors, the Necromancers, who were several in total, had been away in battle on Cybertron.

Decellion and her new comrades had barely made it home after having been driven off from the battle and many Decepticons who had participated in the fight were in need of repairs, including the bulk of the Constructicons, luckily for them that Hook, had been spared any damage and begun repairs on his comrades immediately when he was shown where his new medical ward was. Galvatron had allowed him to design his own place within this new fortress.

Decellion had ordered the Dominion scientists to remain behind to help with repairs, and they had done so without question, too afraid of Decellion's reputation to question her otherwise.

She now, however, had problems of her own. She and Death Strike had become melded together into one being, and she was now on the same level as all the other Decepticons. Her appearance had changed somewhat; just as Death Strike's bestial, humanoid type armour was now gone. She had influenced the new armour by making it more streamlined and battle ready according to the specifications from her own mind.

Her new figure had not escaped the attention of the other Decepticons, and especially not Galvatron's. He had been constantly leering at her new form, as had the others. He was quite happy to admire the ruthlessness and darkness of her character that he had come to know, but now he found her outward appearance quite attractive, along with the sudden respect for her personage. It was a rare occurrence to have a femme mechanoid with them, as many had either been terminated during the war or had defected to the Autobot side. As far as they knew there weren't any femmes left on Cybertron save for one left in the company of the Autobots.

Galvatron had observed her activity with his soldiers since they had returned. For each and every Decepticon that had had the ball bearings to use their vocalisers and say something – anything – to her faceplate, about her change of appearance, in any kind of lurid manner, she had silenced each and every one of them in a directly verbal or physical attack on their person.

He sat forward on the chair of his new throne room, and thought to himself over it. She was turning out to be someone quite useful to him indeed, on more than one level.

He sat back in his chair and laughed to himself thinking about how he could continue to use her to his advantage especially with the new form she had taken.

At the club, the music had just finished and the band had switched the sound system over to the inbuilt DJ system. This system was something that was built exclusively for the club, made by Sound Track, as she had an identical one in her personal quarters on Dragon Valley Base.

Rayleigh had just arrived at the club with her daughter Hannah, a former student.

There were other students here also. Not all legally of age, and so weren't allowed into certain parts of the club, but still were allowed to attend upon invitation.

These other students were Laura and her friends. Ella had invited not only Laura and the friends of hers who knew about the base, but also all her other school friends, whom she wanted to introduce to what it was Ella worked with.

Ella figured they would get involved eventually and thought being at the club tonight would be a good start.

Laura and the others had found their way to a spot near to the tables where some of the mechs, in their Biomodes, were gathered. They had all been invited at the last minute tonight and were grateful to be allowed to attend, this club being one of the most excusive ones in town when it was operating as a night club.

Laura was glad her cousin had been able to come, but Hannah was awestruck. She knew about the Autobots, but never in her wildest dreams ever expected to see any of them in person, or even meet them. Especially the one that she had a bit of a crush on; but he was not here tonight.

Laura waved to some of the others she recognised and sat down with her friend at another table to some talk with them.

Out on the dance floor, Felicia had returned to her robot mode, and was dancing up a storm, outperforming both Tracks and Blaster, who were both having a hard time keeping up with her. Freestyle was also back in her robot mode, with Hot Rod and Hound near her on the dance floor. They were soon joined by Jazz, who had decided to try and take on Flashdance in a little dance contest.

Bumblebee and Grimlock were at the table in their Pretender shells. Jazz, having the best fun on the dance floor was wowing everyone with his skills and inadvertently keeping up with Flashdance, who was doing her best to try and make it harder for him to keep up with her at all, but he kept up with her with every step.

Burnout had dragged Sideswipe out to the dance floor and decided to educate each other on their weird dancing style.

Laura had also decided to get out on the dance floor and have a go, and dragged Bumblebee out for a spin, too. Vanessa was sitting somewhere nearby sitting alone in her Biomode watching everyone. While Sunstreaker was sitting alone quietly at a mech sized table, below the human's area drinking some energon and laughing at his brother's futile attempts of dancing.

"If you think you can do better Sunny then show us what you got!" yelled his brother over the music.

"Fine then," Said the twin as he slammed down his pitcher of energon, "I will!" Sunstreaker by this time was well and truly over charged and didn't get very far before stumbling slightly while trying to get out onto the dance floor, which got a few laughs from those present.

It was then that Ella walked in. She looked around to see what was happening and glanced over to see Flashdance and Jazz well and truly engrossed in a dance off. As well as the others just having some fun. She smiled to herself and went to find a seat with the others for a drink and some company.

At the Alliance council, tensions were running high. The Cybertronians had put forward their case to all the present council members at the general meeting here today.

Each of them including Optimus, his team and also Sound Track, had had their turns at voicing their side of recent events and what they thought would help Cybertron.

It had taken a while for some of the members present for it to sink in, but a vote in favour of offering Alliance membership to Cybertron was slowly coming to pass.

Sound Track had also noticed that two of the high council members were also attending today and she wondered what was happening here for them to attend such a small meeting, as they generally never left their little hideaway. Coming out only when something really important was happening and they wanted the others to know about it.

It was her sensitive hearing that was allowing her to focus on their voices and listen in on their conversation.

'_A most auspicious day it is isn't it?'_ said the first one.

'_Yes, that it is!'_ said the other.

'_We did not have to send any emissaries to Cybertron after all, they have come to us.'_

'_Yes indeed.'_

'_The Prima was right after all that. I am glad that we were able to save time and grateful to the universe for providing us with the Cybertronians here today.'_

'_As am I. Hmm…'_

'_What is it?'_

'_We have a listener.'_

Sound Track quickly turned away from them. She was smart enough to know that it wouldn't have taken them long to realise she was there listening to them talk, and the information they had spoken wasn't much, but it let her know that Cybertron and its case were expected, maybe that's the reason they were out here today. To watch what was going to happen, or deliberately intervene like they sometimes did.

The vote had ended up being in favour of allowing the Cybertronians to join the Alliance, after several hours of discussion. Sound Track knew that it would take some time before they would start to see any results of the new treaty. They had both seen how long it took politicians to decide upon things and potentially sort things out.

They had been lucky enough to get a very quick vote for the Cybertronians, due to the fact that the two attending council members had intervened and swayed the vote in favour of a yes.

Though it was mainly because the council could see the benefit of having more soldiers around to help with the threat of war with the Dominion, and the Cybertronian Decepticons that had joined them recently.

Now it was only going to take weeks of talks with the Alliance council to sort everything out and some willing participants to remain behind to watch over the proceedings. That was one reason why Optimus had chosen four of his companions to come along.

They didn't all agree at once at being left behind on Alpha Prime to deal with the treaty politics but they did agree to it. Envying Jetfire and Bluestreak who would be returning to Cybertron when they were going to leave.

Outside the hall, a courier had come from the war room where Nova and Bonecrusher had been. News of an imminent attack on a neighbouring system, that Alliance scientists had been researching, had come though. The two planets in question were Paradron and Nebulon. Scientists had been observing these planets, as they believed they both held ancient Angellion core computers, much like the one Alliance planet, Alpha Prime, had, and also much like the one Cybertron had, called Vector Sigma.

The Alliance had several agents not only on these planets, but on several non Alliance planets around the galaxy, in order to observe and decide whether they were worthy of becoming members of the Alliance. But it was the planets, not currently members of the Alliance, ones possessing these core planetary systems that they were most interested in.

Paradron was like Cybertron; its people were a relative form of mechanoid to their Cybertronian cousins. It was also the home planet of an Autobot soldier named Sandstorm and also a member of Ultra Magnus's personal team, the Wreckers. Nebulon, on the other hand, was mainly populated by humanoid type organisms, but it was also home to some groups of Transformers, from both factions.

When the courier told the security officers in the outer conference room about the planet Nebulon, Optimus was nearby and couldn't help but overhear.

Sound Track and her visiting friends were on a break from the main conference that was going on inside when the courier had begun to relay information to the Alliance soldiers there.

Optimus overhearing the conversation, quickly excused himself for interrupting them, had told them about his connections with the planet and asked about getting more information on it.

They had looked at him blankly, till Sound Track had indicated to them that their security clearance was sufficient and she would take any responsibility for letting non Alliance residents know about possibly sensitive information.

Optimus had told them he had a few teams based on that planet, namely two groups called the Targetmasters and the Headmasters. These teams had been stationed there some time ago due to Decepticon activity in the area. The Decepticons had stolen technology developed by the Nebulonian people, and had made their own Headmasters and Targetmasters.

Optimus had also told Sound Track of a contact he had on Nebulon who may be able to help them; a brilliant scientist called Hi-Q, who had developed the Headmaster and Targetmaster systems, alongside an Autobot scientist called Brainstorm.

Nebulon also happened to be the place where an old friend of the Autobots, Spike Witwicky, was staying temporarily with his wife Carly, and their son Daniel.

Spike had been working with Fortress Maximus and his Nebulonian partner for some time now. He had previously been an Earth Ambassador to Cybertron, but had grown slightly bored with being stuck in an office too much and so had been allowed by Optimus to join an away team to help ease his boredom.

Optimus continued to relay his story to them, letting them know about a former Nebulonian scientist called Lord Zarak. Zarak was the one who had stolen the technology from Hi-Q to make Decepticon Targetmasters and Headmasters, and along with his Decepticon partner, Scorponok, was still in hiding on a Nebulon moon called The Hive, in an unknown location somewhere. The Autobots stationed here were still looking for Scorponok, in order to bring both him and the Nebulonian criminal Lord Zarak to justice.

After they had gotten all this information from Optimus Prime they had decided to go and talk with their councillors more to try and arrange an away team to investigate the dramas that were now happening in the system.

Optimus, as a newly appointed representative of the Alliance, was asked to join that team and report back to them about it. They were also going to arrange a team of other representatives to ask about a treaty with the Alliance for Nebulon. Seeing as how the head council didn't get to send their representatives to Cybertron maybe they could instead be sent to Nebulon.

Sound Track had signalled Ella on Earth via their private comms network about all that was going on. Ella had told Sound Track that she wasn't too surprised about what was happening, the head council could be like that at times, appearing to be manipulating everything when really they weren't doing anything but going with the flow of events and helping things along.

She cautioned Sound Track about the events of the activities on Nebulon and told her she would have the team ready when she called them in.

While the soldiers he had taken to Cybertron were being repaired fervently by Hook and any other scientist who was enlisted by Hook to help with repairs at Decellion's request, Galvatron had taken another group with him to Nebulon.

He had recently had radio contact with one of his old Commanders, Scorponok and was curious to see what he was up to. He had not been terribly pleased with what Scorponok and his partner Lord Zarak had done to his soldiers at the time the Targetmasters and Headmaster had been made, but over time, he had come to see their usefulness.

This was mainly due to that fact he was completely disgusted by fleshling creatures, but came to accept the idea that fleshlings could be turned into cyborgs and made to serve the Decepticon cause, even if in a minor role, or even as cannon fodder, it would certainly serve to save some time and effort on his part.

Over the last decade or so he had had to put up with two amongst his own company who were partnered with Targetmasters. These two were his commanding officers, Cyclonus and Scourge. And while he didn't care for them, he had gotten used to their presence, and so he had decided to send those two along to Nebulon first to look for Scorponok's new base and see what was going on before he decided to land on the moon base.

He mainly needed to check up on Scorponok's activities to ensure he was still loyal to the Decepticon cause, despite some disloyalties from the scientist in the past.

It didn't take long for the two to send off a signal to Scorponok once they had landed on the moon with their scout ship and then send a receiving location on the base back to their ship that was currently in orbit around the moon. The Targetmasters with Scourge and Cyclonus, Fracas and Nightstick respectively, knew where the base was and had signalled their former team-mates to come into their hidden moon base.

The base had been moved from another moon in the system since the last time due to the fact they had been found and some of their number had been captured and incarcerated down on the main Nebulonian planet, now at the mercy of both the Nebulonian authorities as well as the Autobot team that was stationed here on Nebulon.

Back at the Nightclub party, Jazz and several others around the dance floor had erupted in fits of laughter as the mech twins had taken it upon themselves to start their own dancing competition despite their heavily over charged states.

It had all started when Sideswipe challenged his over charged brother to do better at the dancing he was doing with Burnout.

Then all hell had broken loose, so to speak!

What followed was the most hilarious thing Jazz and his companions had seen the twins do in ages. Jazz was glad that both were over charged and not realising that they were making such afts of themselves trying to outdo each other.

The rest of the people in the club who could see and hear what was going on only joined in on the joviality and fun and just cheered them on.

Jazz was grateful he had decided to record everything for prosperity's sake and perhaps keep the recording and show it to the twins when they were sober again and see how they would react.

Not too far away, Stella had come down to the club to join the others. She had finished her paperwork at the Base and came to relax with everyone else. Not that she was the fun loving type, but she did relax with the others even if she didn't join in very much at all.

"I must confess that I did not know he could dance?" Stella tells Vanessa, whom she had just joined at the human sized table above the mechs on the dance floor.

"Well I guess everyone is full of surprises!" Vanessa replies in between sips of her energon drink, "He and his brother were quite the clubbers back home when I knew them then. This si actually the first time I've been to any club since the old days when I was still back home on Cybertron with the Autobots. It certainly brings back some fun memories!"

Stella smiles at Vanessa's mused temperament in regards to her past and decides to sit quietly and watch the goings on below on the dance floor.

On Nebulon, Spike Witwicky had just received word from his other Headmaster comrades that assistance from some old friends would be arriving soon.

He thought about how long it had been since he had come here; it wasn't too long before Optimus Prime had returned to leadership of the Autobots on Earth. His occupation as Cybertronian Ambassador to Earth had led him here, but he sometimes regretted having made the choice of bringing along Carly and Daniel along on this trip.

His wife and son, however, had adjusted to life on this planet since they had moved here several Earth years ago. And he was happy to be seeing some of his old friends again, hopeful that some of the Autobots Daniel had been friends with on Earth, may be arriving also.

It had been a week since Galvatron had come to the darker side of this Nebulon moon. He had never been too impressed with what Scorponok was doing; using these misbegotten organic Nebulonians as props for their war.

He had not gotten used to it straight away, he had slowly come to accept the idea, and now saw the organics as nothing more than useful pawns, and possible slaves, in his quest for domination. But he still abhorred their presence, even here on this 'Hive' moon base.

He had not regretted taking a chance and accepting the proposal from Decellion, now that she had definitely become more useful to him, especially with her new appearance, and especially when Scorponok and his scientific claptrap had started to become boring.

Decellion had formulated a feasible plan of attack on the planet. She had been careful to appeal to Galvatron's sense of wanting to remain in control of organizing this battle plan while she went and searched for another device like the one she had looked for and not found on Cybertron. The advantage she had was that she knew where three of the devices were. While she was unable to secure them for herself, she knew it would be better to leave them in the enemy's hands for now until she was ready to take them for herself.

She had sent out her Necromancers, under humanoid guises, to spy on the planet's inhabitants, while Galvatron had also ordered out Soundwave and his minions to spy on the populace. Along with the soldiers who were now in Scorponok's command, Galvatron had also brought along his loyal Predacons, and the crazy Stunticons.

Under his command, Scorpinok had his other Decepticon Headmasters, and their relative partners, Squeezeplay, Horri-bull, Fangry, Weirdwolf, Skullcruncher, Mindwipe, and Apeface.

Then there were the Targetmasters, and their partners, that Scourge and Cyclonus were linked to; a team including Needlenose, Triggerhappy, Misfire, Slugslinger, Spinister and Quake.

And last but not least, a team of three Powermasters, and their partners, Dreadwind, Darkwing, and of course, Doubledealer. The last of whom had a history with Hot Rod of the Autobots.

Decellion had made sure she had included everyone in her plan, but presented it to Galvatron in a way to make him think that it was all his idea. She thought to herself that she should just use him as much as she could before ditching him, when she had achieved her goal, but what she didn't know was that he was planning the same thing. She had an idea of what he was up to, but since merging with Death Strike her perceptive mind-reading abilities were no longer working at full capacity, and she had to fall back on bullying and manipulating others to get what she wanted.


	21. Chapter 21 An Old Legend

*An Old Legend*

*

At the base, Starscream had finally been left to rest and recover from his training with Freefall and so had decided to wander the base, trying to think of yet another way to escape his predicament.

It hadn't taken him long to discover that Ella was no longer here and so he set about getting some of his own plans accomplished and went to raid the science labs for equipment.

But he discovered that the room was already occupied, by the doctor, Ray Chalmers, and the scientist, Jackson Wheeler. Both had needed to come to the base for some technical supplies for the project they were assigned to in Port Angeles, and had ended up staying the night when their work had tired them out, continuing their work first thing in the morning.

Starscream however was more interested in their conversation.

"So you think she'll ever do it?" asks Ray.

"Do what?" answers Jackson.

Starscream had to admit to himself that the vocals of both these humans were very familiar to him and it wasn't until he listened to more of the conversation that he began to understand why.

"I'm talking about Ella you lugnutz! Do you think she'll ever fully rehabilitate Starscream?"

"Who's to say?" Jackson was one to hardly give a direct answer, which annoyed Ray to no end. It was never a complete yes or no, but usually a maybe of some form or another he answered with.

"Whatever am I to do with you old friend! You're still the spacey old mind you were as the Autobot's chief scientist."

"And you're still the ever surly old CMO you were before too."

"Ah the good old days!" Ray noticed that something Jackson was working on was starting to fizzle slightly, "And I see you still have a knack for making things potentially explosive!" as Ray started to move to somewhere in case the item did blow.

"I'm not that bad am I?" Jackson asked amused, turning off the devices power conduit and therefore stopping the fizzle completely.

"Well this time around I don't have to do many medical repairs on you. If it wasn't for the magnetic interlocks you have, then I would have to rebuild you each and every time you blew yourself up. I'm glad your body comes apart and puts itself back together so easily now!" commented Ray.

Jackson sighed for a moment as he remembered something, "So Ratch', how do you think they'll react to us when they find out we're effectively human now? I mean I don't know if they'll react to us the same way they did with Prowl, that same kind of situation may never happen with us?"

"I can't answer that for you 'Jack. You and I had plenty of time to adjust and remember who we were, while still being human, the others don't have that luxury, so we'll just have to wait and see. It's bad enough we've gotten to the point where we hardly use our human names when it's just us now."

The two human sized mechanoids pack up the rest of the items they needed and go to leave the room.

Meanwhile outside the room unbeknownst to the two is Starscream. Who is somewhat confused by the revelations that the two humans who were in the science labs were indeed Ratchet and Wheeljack, one of whom he had shot down and terminated in battle using Megatron in his alternate mode years ago, as a Decepticon soldier.

As he leant against the wall thinking, the two passed him in the hallway on their way out.

"Hello!" said Jackson cheerfully as he passed Starscream.

Ray stopped and received Starscream's trademark scowl when he stood there too long and looked up at the full sized transformer. "Well!" commented Ray, "I don't care whose side your on now Starscream, but you're still a two faced rat bag of a mech, with you're own ambitious agenda who can't be trusted to watch anyone's back, or left alone to your own devices for that matter." And as soon as he says it, he goes and locks the lab with a code device of his, smiles and then leaves, waving as he does.

Ray and Jackson wander off and leave Starscream, annoyed that he now cannot get the items from the lab he wanted. Starscream wondered to himself why he hadn't reacted to Ray's comment. Was this imprisonment here at Dragon Valley making him soft? _'Ridiculous!'_ he thought, _'I am Starscream, Lord of the Air. I am as cold and sharp as the wind, as ever I was before and as ever I shall be for all eternity!' _he gloated to himself, but then he also scoffed and thought he was starting to sound like his adopted brother Sunstorm. He then walked over to the control panel at his level on the wall, and begins to work on trying to unlock the door to the laboratories.

*

From Earth, Ella had finally received the call about assistance from Sound Track. Luckily it had been the day after they had all gotten back from the club and the trip to Nebulon would give them time to charge off their hangovers.

Optimus had requested that Jazz and some others, Bumblebee, Hot Rod, Kup, Cliffjumper, Blaster, and the twins, accompany the mission to the alien planet.

From Earth, Ella had brought along Vanguard, Sunstar, Flashdance, Freefall and Burnout. As well as Starscream brought along by Freefall, under no choice of his own, and also with many long winded whines.

By way of Alliance Central; Sound Track, with Joyride and Bonecrusher, along with Optimus Prime, Bluestreak and Jetfire, came along. The others had been left behind to talk to the council. They had stopped by Cybertron on the way through for supplies, and also picked up Arcee, Springer and Blurr.

It had been several days travelling in the Autobot's ship from Earth, but they had finally arrived on Nebulon.

With the Autobot soldiers and visitors from Alpha Prime and Cybertron already on Nebulon, their shuttle had just arrived on the landing pad.

Upon opening the bay doors to disembark, everyone who could, rushed out.

Burnout had never been a very good flyer and her chassis' magma vents had opened during the trip, allowing sulphurous fumes into the air and gassing just about everyone on board. Everyone was glad to be off and away from the smell.

As some of them open their air vents again, Sunstreaker decided to comment. "And here I thought Sideswipe was bad!" The comment got a few laughs from his comrades; even Jazz was trying to stifle a laugh, as Sideswipe gave his twin brother a dirty look and a thump on the shoulder plates. "Wait, I changed my mind, he's worse!" While everyone burst out laughing, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe got into a playful brotherly fistfight.

Vanguard commented, "Same old story!" She waltzed right up to both of them, amidst their little brawl and broke it up. Optimus, who had heard and seen all that had happened, thanked Vanguard for her assistance. "No problem, boss man." She responded, while shoving the twins apart. "Always nice to see these two beat the energon out of each other just for the sake of it!" But with the mood the twins were in they very nearly turned on Vanguard, if not for Optimus ordering them to settle down, she would have probably joined them just for old times sake.

*

Not too far away in a hidden shadow, a mech Panther by the name of Ravage watched them disembark. He muttered to himself, _'Autobot fools.'_ He had been sent down to the planet with Soundwave and some others to investigate and report of any extra Autobot activity.

He had discovered that someone, most likely Optimus Prime or Fortress Maximus, had sent for reinforcements just in case. He counted up their number of all the ones he could see while wandering around their base hidden. He discerned their identities and moved off to report back to Soundwave what he had seen.

*

Off to the side of the landing pad, Flashdance was in her Biomode as Felicia. She had her headphones in her ears, and was having a drag. She thought she had seen something, but by the time her sensors locked onto whatever it was, it was gone.

Blaster had noticed her action, and came over to ask what was wrong. "What's goin' down, li'l 'Dancer?" Having made good friends with Felicia, it was the nickname he'd started to call her by.

"Ah thought ah'd seen somethin' ovah here, but ah guess ah was wrong," She replied. "But no point forgettin' 'bout it!" She clenched her hand into a fist then opened it again. A light stream engaged, as she was able to form a spherical object. She tossed it aside and a large, black cat formed from it. "Shadow, ya'll go and fahnd out if that was just mah imagination or not, ok?" The mech panther nodded its head in acknowledgement and then ran off into the shadows to follow her master's orders.

Blaster was a might surprised at what she had just done. He hadn't seen much of how she could use her abilities, and he liked it, so much, that he thought about trying to get a conversion system for himself if he could. He had decided that he would ask Flashdance more questions about how her system worked later.

Felicia noticed his surprise. "Mah powers are similar ta yours, Blaster, only diff'rent." Then she smiled, and went to tell Ella what she had done with Shadow.

Later as they were talking.

"So you think it might have been Ravage?" asks Optimus, who had listened in on the conversation between Ella and Felicia.

"Ah don' know Optimus. Ah thought ah saw somethin' black, but then again ah wasn't sure what ah saw anyway, so ah sent Shadow just in case." Felicia answered.

"Well anyway, it was a good thing to do. We will see if it was Ravage or not when Shadow reports back." States Ella.

"Yes." Replies Optimus.

Ella looks up at the rather tall Autobot commander, "In the meantime Optimus, while you and the officers are discussing the matter at hand, I'm going to go and take my agents for some rest and relaxation and get them used to the locals, before we actually go anywhere or do anything with your teams."

"That is quite alright Ella. It will give you a chance to get acquainted with some of the locals here at this base also." Optimus didn't quite agree with how casual she was with her soldiers but it was also admired. He had seen first hand that she didn't keep up the barrier he did with his own soldiers sometimes, when it came to him being the Commander and them being the soldiers. Ella and her agents were all close friends or so it seemed, he thought.

Ella turns and calls out to all her team members who had gathered in the halls near the hangar and indicates to them to follow her outside to the main part of the base and to somewhere where they could interact with the locals.

Outside of the base, the local Nebulonian people were used to the presence of Transformers. There were a few looks and points and gasps as her team had alternate modes rarely seen on Nebulon but they didn't really pay much attention and went back to their daily routines as soon as they were out of sight.

They found a local establishment that not only catered to the locals but also to their own kind. When they entered they found several others from the base also relaxing here until needed for the upcoming fight they knew would come. But for now, Ella just told them to spread out and take some time to relax and do what they wanted.

She found herself a quiet spot near a dark corner. Before she wandered over to it she took off her jacket and had to go past some drunken Nebulonians that looked like they were from some kind of archiving facility.

As she went past a few of the men leered at her intensely but one was more curious about her white dragon tattoo and grabbed her arm as soon as she was within reach.

Hot Rod, Blurr and Bumblebee happened to be close by where she hadn't seen them yet and got up in response to the sight of her being grabbed.

"Need any help there Ella?" asks Bumblebee.

Ella puts her hand up to the relaxing Autobots and waives them to sit. But Hot Rod stays standing to keep watch. Ella turns her attention back to the green skinned Nebulonian who still had hold of her arm. "Did you want something?" she asks.

The man was almost trembling, "You…You're one o' dem Dragon Masters aincha?"

"Pardon?" she was familiar with the term but had never been called such a person before and didn't understand why she was being called one now. The 'Dragon Masters' were the ancient Angellions who had warred with Deukalion in times of old and she had not been around then, she certainly wasn't that old.

He was getting more frantic now, "I know you're lying! Trying to hide and protect yourself, but I know the truth, that tattoo proves it." He started getting his voice high pitched and stressed as he uttered the last few words, "You Immortals are extremely rare and now that I've found one I'm not letting you go, you belong to me now!"

Ella sighed, she came across this a fair bit with her tattoo when it was seen. It was a familiar image in the ancient histories of most cultures and was easily recognised by any scholar who had studied the ancient history of certain planets, but she was unaware that Nebulon had this history or that anyone knew about it. She had not expected to be recognised by a drunk tavern patron and grabbed so rudely.

"You're not taking her anywhere short stuff!" Hot Rod had come over to where these individuals were, where they had surrounded Ella and were about to take her out of there. Hot Rod had forgotten that Ella was quite capable of taking care of herself, a reason why she had waived off help from the Autobots.

Her team were watching from close by but had not moved. They knew Ella was in no danger with all of them there, so they just stayed where they were and watched from a distance. They were somewhat amused by Hot Rod's intervention however, but still kept watching to see what would happen now.

"And who's gonna stop us? You?" mused one of the drunkards, not realising that the one who had challenged him was a Transformer. As he looked up he realised his mistake and cringed.

But then Hot Rod shifted to his rather new Biomode so he was at their level. He cracked the metal joints on his hands and motioned to them to start a fight with that devilish grin on his faceplate. "So who wants to be first?"

Ella glared at Hot Rod, "Your actions are appreciated Hot Rod, but not necessary." As she said this the looks on the faces of those partons glazed over. She was used to being hunted or wanted in possibly bad ways, and although she didn't really like doing this to others, she knew it was sometimes necessary. She had used her power to make them forget what they had just done, going into their minds and shutting them down temporarily.

When they had come to they wondered who the people were around them and what they had been doing. Ella had put a forgetful notion over them with her psychic abilities and they would no longer recognise her dragon tattoo, and then she wandered off to where her team was.

"You're no fun, you know that right?" said Hot Rod playfully as she walked past him, being denied a fight and wanting to show off as heroic.

She smirked and kept walking.

Later.

"So what's the story with this Dragon Masters legend anyway? Those Nebulonian guys had said something about it?" asked Hot Rod. He and his two companions had joined Ella and her team and were all surrounding her on several tables, eager to hear what she had to say. It wasn't something she talked about much and only a few members on the team really knew why.

They were not particularly interested in what kind of missions that they would be up as they had become curious about the little situation and about Ella's response to it.

Ella had seated herself in front of the others. With Vanguard, Sound Track and her twin Flashdance, Felicia having changed back to her robot mode; their younger sibling Joyride; Freefall sitting near Starscream with Bonecrusher and Burnout on either side of him to keep him out of trouble; and also Sunstar sitting close to Ella.

Some of the Autobots were also sitting around the room watching the group curiously, but one rather vehemently. It was Cliffjumper. He was not happy with the fact Starscream was here. Many weren't, and he wanted to voice his concerns despite what Optimus had said about keeping quiet and not causing any trouble.

"Slagging waste of time saving him from jail." he muttered flatly, commenting to Ella motioning to Starscream, "You shoulda left 'im there to rot!"

Ella sighs as Starscream gets up to defend himself, "Why you misbegotten, undersized, piece of ugly scrap!"

"Yeah, so what'r you gonna do about it?" threatens Cliffjumper.

Bumblebee sighs and thinks, _'Oh here we go!'_

Several of the Autobots here get up to support Cliffjumper, while Ella settles her own group from getting involved.

Bumblebee nobly stated, "If Prime believes he has a chance to redeem himself Cliffjumper then you should at least try too, despite what he's done in the past."

"I don't care what Prime thinks where he's concerned." Pointing to Starscream, "That slagger belongs in the deepest depths of the Pits!" Retorts Cliffjumper angrily.

Just as Starscream makes a move to attack Cliffjumper, Freefall gets out a device that is linked to Starscream's restraint collar and turns it on by pressing a button. Starscream is immediately floored and writhing in pain.

Freefall stops after five seconds and then turns to face Cliffjumper as she helps Starscream onto his peds, "Ve hev more then enough veys of teking cere of comrede Starscream, Cliffjumper, remember thet, hmm? End you remember to keep vocels shut." She says flatly then sits Starscream down with her again until Ella asks her to take him out and wait somewhere private until its time to get going.

After Freefall and Starscream have left Ella turns her attention back to her group. "Well, uh, It's not like I need to give you guys and girls a pep talk or anything? So, ah what can we do eh?"

"A story, Lass?" asks Burnout.

"Yeah we no be havin' a story from ya for a long time?" comments Joyride. And a few of the others agree and clamour for her to start.

"Well I don't know about a story?" says Ella as she rubs her chin, "And we may be called out soon so I'll tell you about a little bit of Angellion history and myth instead."

"Like what, perhaps?" asks Bonecrusher, her attention now focused solely on Ella. For some reason, Ella's old stories had come to intrigue her, just as stories she had started hearing from the old Autobot Kup, had.

"It's about an old legend." Ella says. "In regards to the Matrices that some of you have heard about, or possess," she looks at Bones' and Sound Track in turn while she says this, then continues, "There are 12 of the devices. These were originally made by the ancient Angellion as far as I know but they were also the power cores of ancient war machines they used to pilot. Even billions of years ago there were creatures that looked like dragons. These mechanical beasts were as big as Gestalts and were sentient mechanical creatures."

"Now the myth goes that the Angellion created the Power Matrices, but these Power Matrices were the cores of the ancient war dragons and it's said that they predate the Angellion. Other stories say the Angellion made the dragons also. So really I don't know what is true and what isn't?"

She pauses to think for a moment. She had noticed that some Autobots in the room were eagerly listening in, not having heard this story before.

"But you know what I think?"

"What be dat?" Asks Joyride.

"I think that the Angellion found the technology, much like the Quintessons found technology on Cybertron. I think the Angellion figured out a way to repair the Great War Dragons and utilised them for the protection of Alpha Prime in those days."

"So there are 12 of these things eh?" comments Kup, who had come in after the start of the story but still caught some of it to understand it.

"Whatever happened to them?" asks Sideswipe. He had also joined them recently after sneakily setting up a daring prank before hightailing it out of the base, with his brother not far behind him.

"Well war is inevitable just about anywhere. No one really knows. Some rumour said that the dragons awakened fully and became beings of light and ascended along with the Angellion to the next plane of existence. Some others say they decided to stay behind and safeguard the universe with themselves, using their power cores, selecting a chosen few to wield them."

"And those chosen few happen to be ones who can become Primes and the like?" states Bumblebee, "Right?"

"Yes Bumblebee, that's correct, a far as the information I have is concerned." Replies Ella.

*

In another room, Starscream was still groggy from his shock, but was coming around.

As soon as he realised he was alone in a room with Freefall he turns on her. "Just what in the Pit did you think you were doing?" Starscream had mistakenly thought she trusted him, considering how she had been acting around him lately.

He didn't appreciate what she had just done and was making his opinion known verbally. He often forgot she was his Commander, but he always spoke to her freely, on his level rather than address her as his superior, she was a femme who would never have the same amount of respect he had secretly carried for Megatron.

She just waited. "You ere finished vhining now comrede?"

"No I am not!' he states angrily. He was confused now as to what Freefall had in mind and what she intended to do. She had been so friendly to him lately, that he thought for sure the femme trusted him, and that he would use every available instance he could to manipulate it, but he was wrong. She had suckered him entirely.

He had been so sure of his instincts, she had been allowing him reign to do and say what he wanted, but this little act to control him had taken him by surprise and caught him off guard. He hadn't known about the shock device and was annoyed with himself for not knowing about it.

As much as he whined and argued, Freefall just patiently and quietly listened till he had done his rant and then she would interject.

"Mistake is yours comrede, thinking I em trusting you yes?" she looked at him and knew she was right, that he had assumed some trust was present on her part and thought he was able to do as he pleased, "You forget, I hev been eround long time, I em much older then you, never underestimate me." She moves in closer to the mech as he stands there only half listening to her with his arms crossed, so convinced of his own personal authority. She makes contact with his optics as they're both about the same height, "End I em your Commender now, you teke orders vhen I sey, not ect on your own, understend?"

"Make me?" he dares.

Freefall just smiles, she moves over to the door of the room, checks that it is locked and then moves toward Starscream again.

He just stands there and the look he gives her is virtually one that dares her to act.

*

Ella had spent almost an hour telling them all about her people's legend and the mythos surrounding it, when the officers called them back to the base for mission assignments.

But Ella was still able to talk with some of them, and those who had yet to return from the meeting room were missing out on the conversation. There were some that were not due out for their missions till later and so had joined Ella and her squad in the rec room after Optimus and Fortress Maximus had asked for their assistance on the battlefield if need be as their own group.

"So is that what Decellion had been after on Cybertron, a Power Matrice?" asked Sunstreaker.

"Yes." Ella replied, "But she hadn't known anything about Cybertron's history by the looks of things, or about the lineage of the Prime's. A long time ago there was a war on your planet that she was involved in. That Power Matrice was sealed away in the place that Bonecrusher had sent her team member Headstrong to guard, I believe you call it the chamber of the ancients now?"

Several of the Autobots nodded. Sideswipe added, "That's where Prime got the Matrix. So the Power Matrices from your history are really one and the same as the Matrix of Leadership we have."

Well not all the same, each of them is different. I think the one you Autobots have is the one that represents wisdom?" Ella commented.

"I believe it is." Stated Kup. "I've known two Prime's in my life and they both exhibit qualities pertaining to that whether they had it in them in the first place or not."

When he stopped, everyone was expecting him to continue with a story but he didn't and that left a few puzzled faces. This made Kup laugh slightly when he realized why it was so quiet.

Ella commented, "Looks like they were waiting for you to carry on old friend!"

He smiles and so regales them with a story anyway.

*

On Earth, a young technological genius was being allowed by her father on special permission to be at his place of work today. That young lady was Alexandra Price and her father was the General and Commander of the Port Angeles Military facility.

Adam Drake was also here today, overseeing the work his special operatives were helping him with.

They were working on a secret project being funded by himself and conducted by the US Government. Adam had presented a viable program to construct mechanoid battle units, slightly larger then the average sized transformer, but units that were capable of being piloted by humans.

The problem was, even though Adam was funding the majority of the project, the Military wanted his plans and wanted sole control of it. He knew it and held back on most of the technology, also building other mechanoids in secret in another place somewhere in Port Angeles for his own idea.

For the moment, Alex was with a group of government scientists that were here today on Port Angeles Military base. Alex was doing an advanced research program alongside her high school learning, where she was also doing University level study, but at the same time going to school with students her own age. That was the reason she was here today.

She had been allowed into the research group that was here because of the program she was on, and also because of her fathers standing in the military, but just like everyone else, she had had to sign a non disclosure agreement about what they were going to see.

When they walked into the room that was deep underground from the upper levels, she was astounded. She would have loved to tell her friends about all this but she knew she couldn't. She wondered if the Military knew about Dragon Valley base, and probably might have mentioned it to her father had she not seen Adam Drake standing by one of the mechanoid units with some others doing some tests.

She had never met him personally but knew of him, and secretly knew he was Ella's daughter, whom she had met before.

She had no camera, no notes she was allowed to take so all she could do was memorize everything she saw.

While the other scientists were being lectured by someone across the room she walked over to Adam and introduced herself.

"Oh yes I remember you! You're one of Laura's high school friends aren't you?" he asked.

She nodded, obviously astounded to be in the presence of a technological genius of his calibre.

"So are these Transformers?" she asks.

"Not really, they are meant to be human operated mechanoid battle units for the EDC and US Military." Said another who was working with Adam. He extended his hand out to greet her, "Doctor Jackson Wheeler at your service young lady!" he said pleasantly.

Another esteemed scientist she knew by reputation. She was indeed very lucky today, "A pleasure to meet you Doctor, I'm a big fan of your work!"

Jackson smiled. She returned the look and then asked, "Are all these others here military scientists too?"

"No." said Jackson, "Can you keep a secret!" he mused.

"Of course!" she played along, wondering what it was that the good doctor was going to reveal to her. He had looked at Adam first to check to see if it was alright and he nodded to his colleague.

"We are keeping the good stuff for ourselves and giving the military only what they need. We, that is to say, Adam has his own idea in mind because he knows the military is trying to wrestle this project from him."

"Like what?" 'Lex was a bit hesitant now. She knew her father and the military did mean well at times, but sometimes she had to wonder whether to trust them or not. And trusting Laura and her friends, as well as Ella had led to more interesting things that her father would never have let her see in a lifetime.

"Well the other ones we are building are better than these, maybe you'll get to see them at some stage!" mused the Doctor, "Now let me introduce you to my friends."

One by one he pointed out each in turn. There was a tallish gruff looking red headed ex soldier who was arguing with another doctor that Jackson had pointed out. A dark haired young Asian man with a bored look on his face was resting on the feet of one of the mechanoid units.

A dark blonde man was talking to himself while fixing something close by, all the while, grumbling to himself in Spanish.

There was a short and stocky dark brown haired Australian man with grey hair at his temples moving some heavy objects around. After he had deposited his latest move, he stopped to muse himself over the soldier and medic arguing and laughed to himself. Though he was barely able to move fast enough when that same medic threw a wrench right at his head. It missed him by mere millimetres and got the Spanish man instead. It knocked him clean out.

"Was that necessary Raymond?" asks another male. He was tall and slim and radiated authority, someone who had just joined the motley crew.

'_Obviously the group leader'_, thought Alex'.

"Now we will have to take Julio to medical and have his head checked out." Said the same group leader.

"Are you expecting me to apologize for that?" questioned the medic, "You know damn well I can fix him right here, after all he's been hit with harder than that. My wrench would've hit Bryan if he hadn't of ducked."

The Australian man shaped his face to a look of innocence when Peter looked at him in a 'I didn't do anything' look.

He turned his attention back to the man who had started looking at the Mexican. "Regardless Raymond, get him looked at and then come and talk to me later, we have things we need to discuss with Adam." Peter walked off out of the room.

Alex was somewhat amused by their interactions, and it somehow reminded her of something familiar that she couldn't quite remember. So she walked back to the group of other scientists smiling with secret information on her mind.

*


	22. Chapter 22 The Fighting Starts Anew

*The Fighting Starts Anew*

*

In the meeting room.

Several soldiers were discussing some matters relating to their tasks at hand, how they were going to deal with the intruders and the Decepticon criminals that were already in hiding. Several of the Autobots had already taken their turn at speaking, but right now it was Springer's turn.

"So, when are we going to go out there and do something about those lousy Deceps?" He was sitting back in his chair, impatient.

"When we have enough information to make a strategic battle plan, Springer," answered Optimus. "Flashdance, have your animecha, Eagleview and Hawkeye, returned yet?"

While Flashdance had sent out two animecha for the skies, Blaster had sent out his cassettes, namely Steeljaw, Eject and Rewind to survey the area on the ground. Blaster's mechs had since returned, but Flashdance's had not yet come back.

Flashdance looked up all of a sudden. She shared her senses with her mechs when they were active; she had just caught sight of something that Eagleview had seen. She turned and projected the image into the room for everyone to see, using her special holographic abilities. Eagleview and Hawkeye had picked up the trail of Buzzsaw and Laserbeak, but hadn't yet been spotted.

Shadow, her mech panther, had followed a trail that led straight to Soundwave while she was still out. She had been told to stay out of sight, and that she did, utilizing her stealth and invisibility to remain undetected.

Cliffjumper piped up after seeing the images. "Well that settles it, Galvetron and his Decepti-punks are here and we gotta go take 'em down." He thumped the table as he said it.

"Settle down Cliffjumper, we need to find out why they have come back here first," answered Optimus calmly.

Cliffjumper sits quietly but grumbles about it.

"Isn't it obvious already, Prime?" said Springer. This got a lot of agreement from everyone, and also a lot of murmuring as to why they were all still sitting there talking and not taking any action.

Joyride had hidden herself in the corner away from everyone else. She was watching everything that was going on and making mental notes. She was a communications officer and as such had pretty good memory recall when it came to information. Though she wasn't much of a fighter, she was smart. But she was still nervous about being in a room full of Autobot soldiers.

Optimus outlined a battle plan for them. Soundwave had been spotted about 1000 klicks to the north of their position. And Flashdance's cat had spotted Ravage several miles east of that position.

"Optimus, the area that they are occupying is riddled with caves and secret passageways that were used for mining orns ago by the local people during their industrial development." Commented Chromedome.

Fortress Maximus' team of Headmasters were also present at this meeting. A few of their team had to agree with Chromedome about the caves and so Optimus put his hand to the lower rim of his face guard and thought.

He would have to change his battle outline yet again. He had to admit that he did not have all the information about this planet that he thought he could. Fortress Maximus had let him have control as he was the General Commander of the Autobot forces, but he had to concede. He turned to his friend and asked, "What do you suggest we could do Maximus old friend, this is your station after all, you and your team know more about this planet than we do, as do your Headmaster and Targetmaster partners."

"Well I have the remaining Targetmasters standing by if needed," he made a quick glance towards Hot Rod and Blurr, whom he knew all had their own Targetmaster partners, and he was sure they would be happy to be back on their own home soil again. "There are also some new ideas that Hi Q has in mind if we can implement them should the battle go their way." He was of course referring to the fact, that if they had a confrontation with the Decepticons, and it didn't go their way, then Fortress Maximus had plans he would go ahead with just in case.

"My idea was to send one team straight to the location Flashdance's animecha had indicated and two other teams to come at them from the side. The caves in that area have a myriad of side tunnels and passages that Soundwave and his small minions could utilise for their small size, so that will be where Blaster and Flashdance will come in. I want them both one each of the pincer teams so that they can be effective in getting their respective teams to spread out and locate any trouble."

Optimus nodded, "That would work very well due to the area. Due you plan on having the heavy hitters in the frontal assault?"

Fortress maximus smiles, "You know me too well Prime! Though I think we should have one or two heavy hitters in the pincer teams also, the Decepticons may realise our strategy before we implement it and we must be prepared to change the plan if they adapt to it."

They discussed it more amongst themselves, and when Optimus Prime and Fortress Maximus were satisfied of their battle plan they finished it, "Okay everyone, you have your duties, get to it." Called Fortress Maximus and everyone filed out of the meeting room to prepare for their missions.

*

Elsewhere on the other side of the planet in the area that the Autobots were planning to recon; before their meeting had taken place, Galvetron, Scorponok and their relative soldiers had touched down and had begun their well organized encampment in the caves.

Decellion had yet to reveal to Galvetron that she had planned this as a means to get access to the core computer of this planet. She knew that there was one, and that it was only a matter of finding it. And that the catacombs they had come to was a good place to start as the signal she could feel was the strongest, it would also be a good way for her own troops to hide their true intentions from the Decepticon leader if she could manage it.

She had given them secret orders to dispatch from where they had been stationed by Galvetron in the caves and attend to her secret plan as soon as they were able, although not all at once.

But she was also distracted. While in this new body form; she had realized something else was apparent. She did not feel like her power was 100%. Something had begun to change. She did not like it as it was unexpected, and she didn't like unexpected things. She was the type who liked well organised and constant control, of not only herself but of all those she deemed as beneath her.

One of the main reasons she had agreed to go with Galvetron to Cybertron in the first place was because of the rumour that she'd heard, that there may be a Power Matrice there.

She had not found out till after the retreat that it was called the Matrix by the Autobots, and used as a mantle of leadership. She thought if they valued their tool as much as she thought they would, then she could leave that particular Matrice for now and focus on getting the others first.

However, she had gotten caught up in a fight on Cybertron with Ella's Avatar, a white dragon. Now in their battles in the past, there had always been problems when her own avatar, a black dragon, had clashed. She always felt drained afterwards. She felt drained more than she usually did right now, like she was slowly dying. She knew that wasn't happening, but she still felt low on power and had yet to ascertain why.

She turned her attention back to the matter at hand.

Now for some reason, here on Nebulon, she could faintly, if only just barely, feel the presence of three power streams that reminded her of the energy signature of Power Matrices. _'They all must be here on the planet,'_ she thought, for her to be able to feel them this closely. She changed her plans to accommodate the new information and decided to leave the fighting to the Decepticons, and follow some other idea.

She also left her Necromancers with the secret plan to find the entrance to the core computer.

*

The fight was only small to start out. The Autobots had received word of the attack while they were still getting ready to move out of their main base of operations here on Nebulon, and now they hastened themselves to the location of the caves.

The Decepticons had been there for quite some time before they had been discovered by Flashdance's mech, but the base alarm had gone off when the central computer had detected more Decepticon energy signatures in that area, telling them that their forces had arrived.

Ella had remained behind with Hi-Q to survey the battle and assist from the sidelines, back at the base, and so, Sound Track, as usual, was in the command position of the Roughnecks team.

She wasn't feeling 100%, just like Decellion was feeling. Something had happened between them on Cybertron that neither of them had planned for and somehow the energy barriers between the two Matrices had only so slightly merge. Ella could barely feel it but she knew it was there. This was something she knew about, it had happened to her in her youth when she had been a servant to another lower key Matrice back on Sigma during the wars with the Dominion. The natural barriers that encased the minds and energy of the Matrices, sometimes connected to each other when some kind of monumental event was forthcoming.

She sat and wondered if Decellion had realised this yet.

While Sound Track had control of her team, she had given overall control of her troops to Optimus Prime. He had mixed them up into two groups with Jazz commanding one group, and Sound track the other. The Targetmasters and Headmasters both stayed in their own groups and were stationed elsewhere around the Decepticon encampments in the cave area.

Optimus also had his own group; he'd taken all the extras that were not already in a specific group that he had organised, including Bonecrusher, Freefall with Starscream in tow, Bluestreak, Jetfire, Arcee, Springer and Blurr. He was feeling somewhat strange that, while Freefall did have control of him, that he would be having Starscream fighting alongside him, that was if the mech was going to fight.

The groups were spread out fairly even, as the Decepticons' were also. No one had yet to discern exactly why Galvetron had returned here, possibly to check up on Scorponok, but no one really knew for sure.

Optimus ordered everyone to keep their optics wide open and be careful, as it turned out; the caves were underneath part of a large city area that was densely populated.

*

On the Decepticons' battle front, the Predacons had engaged the Autobot Targetmasters to the north, and despite their having more numbers than the five Decepticons, they were not faring very well. They were starting to fail against the sheer ferocity of the warriors, who hadn't even formed Predaking yet.

To the East in one area of the caves, that they had invaded, the Necromancers were scouring around under a nearby city to locate an energy signature that would lead them to a hidden entrance for the core computer.

Jazz and his group, which consisted of Bumblebee, Sunstar, Joyride, Sunstreaker, Sideswipe and Flashdance, had spotted their signatures, and had gone underground to investigate after receiving the go ahead from Optimus.

Their pincer movement in the caves hadn't really worked and so Fortress' and Optimus thought that diverting their attention slightly to take care of the Necromancers, whatever they were doing, might help them in some form.

However, they found some areas difficult to navigate as the underground was not made for mechs their size. Those that could, reverted to their pretender shells and bio modes.

To the south, Sound Track and her group, with Burnout, Cliffjumper, Vanguard, Blaster, Kup and Hot Rod, were engaged in a fight with the Decepticon Headmasters.

While out west of the city, Cyclonus, Scourge and the rest of the Decepticon Targetmasters had come across the Autobot Headmasters.

Galvetron, with Decellion, the Decepticon Powermasters, and the Stunticons in tow had surrounded Optimus Prime and his group in the centre part of the caves beneath the city.

This was the area that Scorponok had previously set up for his experiments and was in the process of showing them off to his commander when the Autobots rolled in.

Up above, Sound track had realised the pincer movement had failed and then went and gathered her group to help evacuate the city. Once they realised that most of the people had already fled in response to an automatic evacuation signal, they returned underground to assist Optimus, who was now in trouble.

Optimus was reluctant to engage in a full force fight with Galvetron below because of the innocent humanoids present up above, and now the problem was he was in dire straights, having had most of his team taken down , as well as himself, being incarcerated by Scorponok and his warriors.

*

Back on Earth, young Alexandra was mulling over things she had seen and heard at the military base.

She was back at school again today, being the middle of the week and was hanging out on the school grounds at lunch time with her friends.

"I'm curious?" she asks anyone who'll listen.

"About what?" answers Christine who was the closest to her. Krysta was on Alex's other side and also listens in.

"Do you think it is at all possible that Transformers can become human?" Alex ponders.

"Of course they can!" comments Christine. Several of the group turn to Christine in response to her answer. "I mean you've already heard of pretender shells right?"

A few murmur in agreeance and think that is what Alex meant.

"That's not what I meant at all." She comments, "I meant really becoming human, like being in a biological body or something just as close, like something cybernetic that can't transform." Alex was only relatively new to the group, but Christine smirks, it was just like some of the 'what ifs' they got from Ryan. Little did they know Alex was just referring to her trip to the military installation, keeping her ono disclosure agreement in mind, without really telling them what she saw and heard. "I mean would there really be any difference as to what body they're in? Would you be able to tell the difference?"

"Wouldn't bother me really, I'd rather they be robot than flesh." States Ryan.

"You would prefer that wouldn't you!" Muses Adrian. "I prefer my flesh and blood girlfriend to a robot one any day!" Aelya leans into her boyfriend and complements him for his concern.

Robert, a closet softie comments, "Aww, how cute! Makes me wish I had someone now?" Christine reaches over and gives him a pat and rub on the back as he looks like he is about to cry. He takes the handkerchief Laura offers him and blows his nose.

Laura was quite interested in why Alex had started to say such things. She knew the tech genius was into machines, especially the Transformers and what the Autobots represented, but her coming out with philosophical stuff like this, bothered her, and she resolved to ask Alex later what she meant by it all really. But in the meantime she would have to settle for whatever explanation she decided to tell them. "So what brought up the philosophical debate all of a sudden 'Lex?" she asks

"I don't know really, just wondering I guess." Replies Alexandra.

Laura could tell straight away that she was covering something up, after all she had been doing it to her friends, though not of her choice, for quite a long time. 'Perhaps she's discovered something about those Autobots I know of. The ones who are somewhat human now.' Laura thinks to herself.

*

In Port Angeles at the military base.

"_Are we ready to go yet?"_ asks some pilot over a radio unit.

Adam and his group had gotten the mechanoid units operational and now the tests were beginning.

Doctor Wheeler was standing by watching over things as Adam couldn't be here to attend today. "Now just pretend you're driving a car for the first time. Ease it out slowly and don't try and force the controls too much. The mecha units movement programs should be able to handle the controls, alright?"

_"No problem Doc." _answered the pilot over the internal radio. The Officer selected for today's test was one of the best drivers on the base, in terms of cars that is. This was different for him, being at the controls of a large mobile machine. One by one he followed Doctor Wheelers instructions he was being given over the radio and flicked switches both on and off as several systems, both lit up and died out as the mech started moving upon command.

Doctor Wheeler breathed a sigh of relief when the pilot started moving the mech unit out of its bay and took its first few steps.

"Impressive!" comments Raymond, "Looks like it passed it first test and hasn't blown up."

"Well not yet anyway!" says Bryan who was nearby and watching on, "You think they'll ever catch on with this and replace us, I mean the Autobots?"

"I sincerely doubt it." Says William lifting his head slightly from the screen in front of him, then he went back to writing notes and taking notice of the coded algorithms that were coming up on the view screens as requested by Jackson during the test.

"I hope Adam finishes this stuff soon 'cause Ella once said to us when we're done here we can go back to our old friends." Pines Bryan.

"When the time is right." Said Peter, as he walked in through the door to their little alcove.

"Yeah, sure, why not!" replies Bryan sarcastically, "I mean they got to see you, so why can't the rest of us go see them?"

"What happened to me out there was not planned Bryan, please remember that. We will be done here soon enough and then we can all go and greet the others properly." Peter turns from the short Australian male and around to the red headed Doctor, "Raymond, how is Julio?"

"Oh him? He's fine, sulking in his quarters right now." Raymond was distracted.

He and some of the others were watching through the viewing window as the pilot walked the mecha up the underground hall. _"Is that enough Doc?"_ asked the pilot as he had gotten to the opposite end of the hall and gotten the unit to respond and turn around.

"Yes Captain that is fine. Can you run through the weapons system now please?" Jackson replied.

Jackson and the others sat back and watched the rest of the tests as they seemed to go off without a hitch and spent the rest of the day afterwards poring over results and reports, not only to give to Adam, but also to give to the Military base, and to others who had requested the reports on the progress of the tests.

*

In the underground caves of Nebulon, the Necromancers had found the energy signature they were looking for and had proceeded to try to pry open the entrance. They had been found by Jazz and his group before they could have done anything, however, and the fire fight was a shooting gallery free for all.

The vast number of passageways and tunnels didn't help matters, either. Many of the Autobots had turned around and already lost their direction and become separated trying to both get away from the vicious Necromancers and also protect themselves from them.

Flashdance, in her Biomode, ejected several of her animechas to get a map of the place, and to help the others. Felicia had, in the meantime, engaged her phasic invisibility to avoid getting hit by stray blasts, so they harmlessly passed right through her, like she was a ghost.

Bumblebee and Jazz, in their human-sized pretender shells, were having fun in their own personal gunfight. Ella had told them of the Necromancers; they were similar in design to Bioroids, but were a darker cousin of their forebears, the Cybredian and only a head or so larger than the Minibots.

She had also warned all of them that these Necromancers were more dangerous than Decepticons and they only listened to Decellion.

Jazz and Bumblebee were having a hard time fighting them, as all the burn marks on their armour was no doubt showing. The Necromancers were using a form of energy projection that they emitted from their hands, like glowing evil Ki.

Joyride, in her biomode, along with Sunstar and the twins, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, had been forced into a large, open area underground. It did give them room to fight in their robot modes, but there was very little cover.

Casey had already been knocked out and had reverted to her robot mode, while Sunstar was having a hard time coping with the closed in space. The twins knew about her claustrophobia, but so far she hadn't shown any outward signs of trouble, so they left her to her fighting, as she outperformed both of them on more than one occasion.

Sunstreaker had already moved his twin out of the way, as Sideswipe had received copious amounts of ripping and tearing of his armour from the smaller techno-organic aliens. His brother had finally given out, no longer able to fight and slipped into stasis lock when Sunstreaker had turned his head for a moment to deal with another wave of the aliens and Sideswipe's injuries had become too much for him.

Sunstreaker himself had been overcome by these few vicious fighters and was also injured. He groaned at all the scratches, dents and rips in his armour.

Not too far away Sunstar was coping on her own. Sunstreaker was slowly being overcome by the ones plaguing him, but his foolish pride stopped him from calling out to Sunstar for help and he eventually had to succumb to stasis lock also.

The Necromancer soldiers had moved away from the twins once they were down; they weren't interested in crippled fighters, they wanted a challenge, and Sunstar gave them one.

But this was proving too much of a strain on her, as her circuits were starting to glow profusely due to the excess energy that she was using. She had realised that she was alone in the dark cave and no one was going to help her. She had many injuries and her claustrophobia had started to set in and warp her thinking when the ammunition of her rifle ran out and panic started taking over.

*

At the EDC headquarters in Los Angeles, Marissa Fairborn was looking over the reports emailed to her from Port Angeles military facility.

She had to admit to herself that she was quite impressed with the results of these tests, having been sceptical when she had first met up with Adam Drake and the US President in Washington all those months ago.

Her initial opinion of the project was that it wouldn't work. She had seen first hand how many elite military technologists and scientists alike had failed at even getting as close to it as Adam had.

It was like he was one of them, a machine building other machines, she had thought to herself. But she knew that wasn't a reality. Everyone knew he was just a very talented and very skilled technologist himself.

_'Maybe the US Government should have hired him years ago, maybe we would've helped the Autobots win their fight here by now?'_ she questioned in her mind.

Her current assignment was on a military base situated just north of Los Angeles off the road from one of the main highways leading north. And just like any other Military facility, especially this one, most of it was secreted away underground, so she thought it would be perfect to train soldiers to pilot these mecha combat units.

When she had read the preliminary reports of the first tests, she had decided then and there she wanted more of these units for training on her base. The tests had been so successful, that she had already ordered up a list of potential pilots for the units including herself as the team Captain.

Though, what she didn't realise was that that team had already been taken care of and already existed and had established themselves a secret hideaway in Port Angeles.

Peter Rawlings was the Captain of that team, Team Excelsior. And his small team had Adam to thank for the secret underground facility that had been built right underneath Port Angeles University.

The area was actually riddled with caves and Adam knew this when he built the place. The facility sprawled itself out, not just being situated under the University, but it also stretched out under the city, towards the harbour.

Adam took the opportunity to use his private stock of nano morphic building technology and built the facility from nothing, the nanytes themselves using the cave walls as material for construction and then hardening into a diamond like steel to the specifications Adam had programmed into it.

Team Excelsior had yet to move into the facility properly and for now only stored the duplicate mecha units they were building there, as well as a multitude of needed supplies.

So Commander Fairborn would be waiting quite some time for her units to arrive. But soon she would have the chance to see this facility for herself.

*

To the south of the city, Sound Track and her group had become engaged in a fight with Scorponok and his team of Headmasters. The four Cybertronians in the group, Hot Rod, Kup, Cliffjumper and Blaster, had already downed Mindwipe and Horri-bull.

Cliffjumper was currently having a hard time wrestling with Skullcruncher in his crocodile alt-mode.

Vanguard and Burnout were occupied with Squeezeplay and Apeface. Sound Track, on her own, was now battling one on one with Scorponok.

Blaster had been badly mauled by Fangry and Weird Wolf, and was in critical shape, so Kup had volunteered to take him back to base for medical attention and come back to help ASAP.

The fact that they were being held up by this lot of enemy soldiers told them that Optimus may already be worse off than they were, and quite possible in enemy custody. They had received a distress call, but where unable to act on it.

Cliffjumper had finally succeeded in taking down Skullcruncher, and had moved on to help Hot Rod, who was fighting Fangry and Weird Wolf on his own, but not really succeeding. Running up to Hot Rod, he asked, "So, which one do you want?"

"Well, I'm capable of handling both these guys on my own," he mused, "But hey if you wanna give it a go, little buddy, just take your pick!" Hot Rod replied.

Their fight had slowly but surely brought them back up to the city, and now another group that was fighting could easily be seen and heard in the distance.

While Burnout had had her fun with Apeface and the obnoxious comments he was making to try and get her off guard, she had easily disposed of him when he had begun to brag about how superior his fighting skills were to hers. She being the proud fighter she was, took it upon herself to show him just how wrong he was.

However, she was starting to run low on power after the fight, and now began to draw on any volcanic energy she could get from the planet. It was a little trick her power drive system had that let her survive in places without the constant consumption of energon.

Vanguard had had her super strong armour torn open by Squeezeplay. Not even her power shields had helped, as her power had drained too quickly and she had passed out from the damage. It seemed that she had entered the battle not fully charged in their haste to get to this location.

Burnout had gotten her second wind, and had taken on Squeezeplay after Vanguard had passed out, quite easily damaging him as much as he had damaged Vanguard, and took him out, laughing all the while. Once she had done that, she set her sights on Skullcruncher, who hadn't been completely shut down by Cliffjumper, and who had decided to return to the fight. Burnout was on a roll, and managed to get him out of the way, also, and enjoying every second of it. It was indeed her element, fighting like a crazed, bloodthirsty vampire.

While she observed Sound Track and Scorpinok going all out in their fight, Burnout then went to help Hot Rod and Cliffjumper take down the other two remaining, Weird Wolf and Fangry. Cliffjumper was out cold and no longer able to fight, but Hot Rod was still going, and Burnout noticed there was not a scratch on him.

"Lad, either ye've got super tough armour like m'self, or ye are just damned lucky. Look at ye, ye've nae a scratch on ye?" Burnout commented.

"Must be just my luck!" He replied confidently, smirking.

She snickered at his comment and decided to let it go until she could ask Ella later what was going on. In the mean time, she had grabbed Weird Wolf by his tail and had swung him around and around in a circle until she finally let him go, the Decepticon landing several miles away.

Then pushing Hot Rod aside, she balled up her fists and gave Fangry a near fatal blow, crushing the processors in his chest casing and knocking him out cold, but not killing him. "And now," she said, pointing to Sound Track and Scorpinok, "All we have tae worry 'bout is tha'!" She picked up Cliffjumper and put him over her shoulder. Her armour was covered top to bottom with light scratches and dents, and she admitted to herself that these Decepticons were indeed a tough bunch to be able to do that to her precious armour.

It was at that moment that Kup had returned. "So, what did I miss?" he asked. He saw Burnout and Hot Rod watching the fight going on. "Shouldn't you two be helping instead of standing around gawking?" While he had his back to Sound Track some distance away, he turned around in time to see her transform into a bigger, stronger looking version of herself. He had heard about what happened on Cybertron, but had not been present to see it, and was now aghast at what he saw.

Sound Track used the opportunity as Scorpinok was momentarily startled by her transformation, to take him out, considering he'd already started to tire and couldn't keep up with her. Once done, she called in the three Powermasters, Getaway, Joyride and Slapdash, who had remained behind at head base to assist with any rounding up of the criminals.

She then turned to the others that were still here, "Hot Rod, ya'll can take Cliff' back ta base for repairs and then zone in on our location. We'll be goin' underground ya'll for some rescuein!"

Hot Rod initially complained about ebign elft out of the rescue but conceded and hirried off so he copuld get abck quickly to join in on the fun.

After he left, Sound Track went underground to follow Optimus' distress signal, and the others followed right behind her.

*


	23. Chapter 23 One Once Lost

*One Once Lost*

*

Back at the base, the Autobot Powermasters, Slapdash, Getaway and Joyride, had finished securing the Decepticon Headmasters they'd brought in.

Scorponok however had disappeared before they were able to retrieve him when they arrived on the scene south of the city.

They had also brought in some Targetmasters from the west. They had managed to get only half of them, with Scourge and Cyclonus taking off with the other jets.

Most of the Autobots Headmasters team was in the medical bay.

Hardhead and Fortress Maximus had gone after the runaways to bring them in.

Whereas Jetfire and Springer had joined them to lend a hand, with Jetfire making medical runs to and from the base with the injured.

Three other Autobot Headmasters, Nightbeat, Siren and Hosehead had gone off to ensure there were no more people left in the city that would fall prey to the Decepticons destruction.

Of Prime's group, Bluestreak, Arcee and Blurr had been brought in for medical attention. And Cliffjumper, Vanguard and the Autobot Targetmasters had recently joined them. Having gone underground to rescue Prime and his group, they had come across major difficulties. Even though they had managed to temporarily drive off those Decepticons they ran across, it wasn't long before they came back in force to bother them again and accrue some more injuries.

Ella had noticed that this fight wasn't going very well and that the Decepticons were well organised this time. She noted that the battle strategy being used was very similar to what Decellion used and wondered what had happened to her during the battle, as she had disappeared.

*

Decellion didn't care much for what happened to Galvetron's soldiers. She had found a more interesting target.

She had identified Optimus Prime as a possessor of one of the Power Matrices she wanted to get her hands on. Back when she was on Cybertron, she knew it would be prudent to leave his be for now as she had observed how the Autobots revered their so called Matrix of Leadership. And supposed it would still be there if she decided to get it last

Within her was a lust for power, a need to get all these devices in place all at once. She knew that this lust wasn't entirely hers; some of it belonged to her old beloved. She knew he was alive and functioning somewhere in the universe and he was still able to see the world through her and imbuing his dark mind on her to collect the Matrices and fulfil his desires.

She did not need to be forced to collect them, as she wanted them for her own uses. She was lucky that all her watcher could do was see, and not feel or know her thoughts.

She knew that Optimus was busy with Galvetron right now, and she couldn't risk showing up Galvetron in a fight and exposing her plans. So she turned her attention elsewhere.

Another power signature she had recognised had recently surfaced, and she went after that one instead.

*

In the city, the Predacons had shown up near the medical encampment the Autobots had set up for themselves. Right now the Autobot Targetmasters were busy doing their best to keep them at bay.

*

Up above in the sky, Freefall with Starscream alongside, were surveying the battle.

"I don't see why you even bothered to bring me along on this?" he whines.

"It is because I insist you come along comrede," she mused, "Besides you vill vent to show off your superior flying skills in bettle, yes?" and she banks off in another direction suddenly, leaving him alone with two bleeps that had just come up on his scanners to his rear.

Starscream was abhorrent of his predicament, being forced to come here against his will, being tortured by Freefall into submission back at the Autobot base before and now being forced to fight against former Comrades in Arms. He had to admit though, that Freefall knew how to stroke his ego and if he could smirk right now, he would. He would have to give the femme a piece of his mind when he was alone with her again, she certainly knew how to fight too, and he also liked that about her.

Despite him still being sore from the beating she gave him before, he kept his trajectory instead of escaping when he first had the chance too, he did somehow in some way want to test himself against old comrades in battle with his new form and it intrigued him to see how he would fare. _'Not that I would fail to do so anyway.'_ He reassured his ego.

"Hey Dreadwind?" asked one of the jets in the distance to his companion.

"Yeah." Replies the other Decepticon jet.

"That jet up ahead of us look familiar to you at all?" queries Darkwing.

"Yeah." Comes the uncaring monotonous reply.

"So do we go and slag him for just existing? He can join us in a vainglorious amount of personal suffering."

"Yeah."

"Oh and Dreadwind?" asks the other jet.

"Yeah."

"Wake up already! Hi-test, make sure he gets into gear this time, we can't have him going in half-afted again or Galvetron will have our afts real bad, not that I'd mind the dismal torture anyway!" says Darkwing gleefully.

"Sure." States Dreadwind's Powermaster partner.

Starscream sees the two jets approaching him from behind and he sighs as he easily recognises them both.

They catch up with some effort and sidle up alongside their old comrade.

"You know I'd heard stories that you were dead 'Screamer?" asks Darkwing.

"I assure you those stories are not only greatly exaggerated but woefully inadequate. As you can see I am alive and fully functional."

"Yeah obviously!" says Dreadwind sarcastically.

"Guess we'll just have to do something about that eh Dreadwind?" states Darkwing.

"Yeah, definitely!" he replies happily.

"Oh, bother!" If Starscream could roll his optics he would, "As if either of you two have the skills to do so." He gloats. Then he banks a sheer left and rolls, and then heads off at mach 3 to the west.

He is glad to be able to fly alone and free since being put in Ella's company. It is the first chance he has to do so and revels in it. He easily evades any attacks by these interlopers and marvels at all the new upgrades and technology in his system, at all the new raw power he now has at his controls while in the air.

After skilfully outmanoeuvring them, he backtracks behind them both and catches them by surprise, shooting them both down with cluster bombs.

Freefall drops in on him from above almost startling Starscream out of the sky, "Good vork!" she says out of thin air.

"Where in the blazes did you come from!" he says exasperated.

"You think maybe I leave you elone end risk you ecseping, yes?" she snickers to herself. "Let us see just how good of flyer you think you ere comrade. You vill follow, yes." She motions to him.

He takes her comment as a challenge and agrees to it, "I don't _think_ I am a good flyer, I _know_ I am, the very best in fact and I don't have to prove it to you." He gloats. _'But for the sake of my pride and reputation, I will race you just to see what this new body can really do.'_ He muses to himself, and so they begin their race, while still battling the enemy below on the ground and with others in the air.

*

Down below on the streets, Burnout was revelling in a rematch with the Stunticons yet again, who had decided to take her on all at once this time just for the pure fun of it. While Burnout was having fun, the Stunticons didn't seem to be having any, not after a while. Someone else had turned up whom Burnout welcomed to the fight readily.

Bonecrusher had decided to fight also.

Elsewhere, close by, Heather was in her truck. She had come through with the group from Earth. She had decided to help and come with some supplies for the Autobots through a warp gate created by a Dragon Vallet Base resident for her. She also came to help cart the wounded to and from their makeshift medical encampment on the battlefield.

But while going back out for another wounded retrieval, she was unknowingly accosted by the Predacons leader Razorclaw.

He recognized what the human was doing and intended to take advantage of the fact she didn't seem to be protected. Taking her out of the fight would erase one option the Autobots had for removing their wounded from the battlefield. Then their medics couldn't fix anyone, and no reinforcements would again be sent out to fight them.

He was not prepared for what the truck would do however.

In the front drive seat of the truck Heather was monitoring all the activity around the truck when suddenly it disengaged the rear trailer without her asking it to.

"Lady One, what are you do…?" she didn't have time to finish as she soon realised why the truck took it upon itself to act defensively and detach the trailer.

The truck slammed on the brakes and Heather took the opportunity to look back quickly to see the mangled wreck of the trailer and also a Decepticon Lion fast approaching.

She quickly became aware of the fact also that the truck was not acting like it should. The engines revved up, her seat belt tightened and it shot forward on its own without guidance from her. As soon as the truck reached the Autobot encampment Heather was tossed out the driver's side door and it turned itself around and faced the Predacon who had taken cover behind some rocks nearby to avoid the laser fire he was attracting to his position from other Autobots.

Razorclaw quickly decided to give up on the truck and left the area to find another target worthy of his skills.

A few of the others at the encampment raced up to Heather and asked if she was okay.

"Yeah I'm fine, but my truck is acting kind of weird? It's never decided to have a mind of its own like that before?" She was confused, but for now she would have to let it go. As the means she had to helping the Autobots retrieve wounded from the battlefield had been destroyed.

Not too far away the two fighting sides had started to gather together.

Optimus Prime was locked into a battle once again with Galvetron and wasn't faring too well. He had already suffered the indignity today of being captured by the Decepticon leader, but at least he had been rescued before anything could have been done.

It was a gamble Optimus had been prepared to take as it had given him some information that the Autobots could use. Having found out some plans that the Decepticons wanted to accomplish in the near future and also where they were stationed and what was going on with them.

He'd discovered that Charr was no longer the burnt out husk they had retreated to after their last war, they now had a fortress there with which to base their fighting from and an arsenal that was being upheld and supplied by the Dominion. When he had the chance to, he would have to bring this to the attention of the Alliance.

*

Elsewhere in the streets, Jazz and Bumblebee had managed to escape being trapped underground with the Necromancers and had to make a run for it, only to run directly into some Predacons upon emerging.

Right now they were weary and sore and suffering from some injuries, but were also playing a game of cat and mouse with the two Decepticons on their trail.

"How 'r ya doin back there li'l' buddy?" Jazz asks Bumblebee.

"Fine for someone who has to drive with a cracked axle!" jokes the diminutive Autobot. "But I think you should stop focusing on me and pay attention to that Tiger coming your way!"

Jazz snickers to himself and quickly gets out of the way of a pouncing Predacon Tiger named Rampage.

Bumblebee has problems of his own though, the Bull, Tantrum and the Rhino, Headstrong have decided to play battering ram with him. He knew he wouldn't stand a chance if either of them came into contact with him. So he was glad when a few familiar faces show up to even the odds.

"Need any help boys?" asks Kup., who had Springer and Hot Rod in tow.

"You bet!" exclaims a relieved Bumblebee. Nearby he had spotted Jetfire, who was continuing his rounds of the battlefield retrieving the wounded as he had just received word about what happened to Heather's trailer.

Jazz however was still continuing to evade Rampage and now Divebomb who had joined in the fun.

Springer, Hot Rod and Kup came up alongside Jazz and began to help out. "You head off with Jetfire Jazz and get your wounds seen to back at camp, we'll take care of business here." Springer told him, and with that they jumped into action against the Predacons, while Jazz and Bumblebee were taken by Jetfire to the camp for medical treatment.

*

Decellion had found her target, Sound Track. She knew that the pulse emissions she could feel emanating from the blue femme were unmistakably a Power Matrice.

Both this blue one and that other orange reptile had them, or so Decellion thought. She hadn't been able to do a scan while on Cybertron because the circle that she had been trapped in had negated any chance to do so.

Decellion could not tell which Matrice device Sound Track had in her possession, but it wasn't important. She was thinking about something else.

The femme was very similar in colour and form to one she knew once, so perhaps it was that same one she had known then, someone she had tried to terminate when she had extended her mind out of the black hole and imposed it on one of her loyal subjects, in order to operate outside of her prison..

'_Not that it matters,'_ she thought to herself, _'I'll just terminate this one too and then take what I want!'_

She was unable to get close enough to Sound Track to try, as she noticed the femme's audio sensors were very well tuned, and she wondered how she was going to get her prey. It wasn't going to be an easy kill.

When she had the opportunity to do so she strengthened her mental defences to hide her mind and also tread as quietly as she could to stalk Sound Track as close as she could without the femme noticing her, and when she saw an opening, she struck.

The fight between the two carried on for some time. Control of the fight went backwards and forwards between the two. Soon something would have to give.

Decellion had finally gotten the opening she wanted. After having to fend off Sound Track's hand to hand combat skills, she went in for the kill she thought she was going to get. She was able to tear her claws through Sound Track's chest casing to show the Power Matrice underneath.

Regardless of the searing pain, and the agony Sound Track was clearly showing on her faceplate, she forced herself to stay online. That expression alone on Sound Track's part was what Decellion was revelling in. It was the thrill of watching her prey slowly die and she got to watch them that sent her systems into an ecstatic overdrive.

But Sound Track wasn't going to die so easily. Even though her cooling apparatus had been punctured and it was making her gasp for air, she wasn't able to keep her usually cool systems ice cold; the overheating was sending her towards inevitable stasis lock. All she could do was to wait now, but she had the chance to send off a distress signal to whoever would hear it before she passed out.

She had the sense to upload her core consciousness into her backup system. She knew that once Decellion took her Power Matrice, her power core would also go with it. She knew this was what Decellion had come after her for and although she had put up a brave fight she could no longer hold out.

But for Decellion, it was a kill that was not going to come. When Sound Track's system had done its uploading she let her system shut down and she collapsed to the ground.

Decellion was feeling somehow disgusted that this femme was so easy to kill. She thought to herself that any others she came across who were guardians of these Matrices would at least have put up a better fight, after all, they had in the past?

She slammed her hands into Sound Track's chest, not bothering to maintain anything, moving parts aside forcibly to get at what she wanted; unaware that Sound Track had uploaded her core to a special system within herself along with some energon to maintain it, Decellion thinking the femme dead.

While Decellion is gleeful of her newest acquisition, the ground starts to shake elsewhere. Then a tower of solar energy erupts from the ground and pours into the sky.

*

"Are we done with this project yet?" asks a bored young Japanese male.

The other in the room with him called Raymond has become annoyed with him constantly asking the same question over and over again.

William has been lucky thus far, Raymond had nothing to throw to shut the youngster up. He usually throws something with pinpoint accuracy at a target that is annoying him.

But right now all the items within reach had been taken by Henry, who was standing nearby waiting for peter to arrive. Henry knew better and had deliberately removed anything throwable from Raymond's reach.

So calmly and very dryly Raymond answers, "No."

"Well when are we going to be done and move on to something else, I'm bored here, my tech-org skin is peeling from the absolute boredom!" William whines.

"And here I thought Julio was bad!" muses Jackson.

"That ain't the half of it!" responds Ray', remembering something he had done earlier.

While Jackson is looking at his friend weirdly, Peter walks in and begins to address everyone present.

They had gathered here today in a meeting room at Dragon Valley Base to discuss some items of business.

When they had all stopped the chatter between themselves and had finished sitting, Peter began.

"Adam has informed me that the Military has approved the final designs of the research work we have just tested and want to move on from the prototypes we helped build for them and begin building the test types for actual combat."

Henry has to snicker to himself.

"Something wrong Henry?" asks Peter.

"Nothin', jus' that they'll nev'r fully replace tha Autobots, no matt'r how much tha humans trah. We've been doin' this whole war thing fer far too long an' their race is still so young."

"But they have shown some promise!" questions Jackson.

"This comin' from you Jack', you happen ta lahke humans, yer opinion is biased!" states Henry.

Jackson shrugs, "Yeah so. The good ones here on Earth have done well for us so far. While their military is kind of jaded and not like ours, they are effective and I think they can cope with the responsibility."

"Adam don't think so. An' yer wonderin' whah he's getting' us settled inta that oth'r place?" Queries Henry.

"From what I understand of his family's history Henry and Jackson, he decided that was the best solution in case the military goes on a power trip and gets out of control with these battle mech units. He has experience with certain factions getting out of control when they started out with good intentions. But what we are doing at the underground facility serves its purpose and we will be moving our activities there sooner or later."

"Finally!" says an exasperated William.

Peter glares at the youth and then turns back to the others he was talking to.

"So what'd I miss mates?" asks Bryan as he walks in.

"You are late." States Peter dryly.

"Alarm didn't go off. Internal clock not workin' either, gotta go and talk to Heartia later and have it looked at. My neuro-cybernetics have been playing up lately for some reason." He looks over at Raymond, who had been the last person to do a medical check of him.

"What?" says Raymond innocently, "What makes you think I've done something?" he says when several of them look at him. "Fine! Bryan come around to my office later and I'll fix what I put out of place."

Peter sighs, "You sill haven't changed!"

"I don't think any of us have Pete. The only difference this time is that although we know who we are, we weren't brought online as Cybertronians this time. We're human born, and remade into cybernetic organisms now. And the best thing is, no active part in the Cybertronian war and no twins to terrorize me, and no having to repair a certain mech who shall remain nameless who used to have an annoying habit of jumping in front of another mech's fusion cannon in battle!"

Henry allows a small chuckle to erupt from his newly installed cybernetic vocalisers, "Ah fer one cahn't wait ta get back in ta tha fahghtin'. That is if Ella evah lets us."

Julio walks in from outside, "She'll probably never let us go, you realise that right?" he whines depressively. "We'll die waiting."

"And what is your excuse for being late?" asks Peter.

Ray chuckles and put his hand up, "I'll openly claim that one. I turned him off and left him tied up in the medical bay."

Peter narrows his optical units at the Doctor.

"What!" Ray says innocently, "He was whining too much!"

Peter puts his hand over his faceplate and shakes his head casing from side to side, and then sighs, while Henry and Bryan start laughing.

*

Underground, the twins had come around to find the area they had gone offline in deserted, or so they thought.

Sideswipe was the first to wake up. Despite the fact he had gone offline due to severe injuries, he had come online again with not a scratch on him. He looked over to his brother and found him the same.

He nudged the sleeping beauty awake, "Yo Bro, wake up?"

"Go away, I'm trying to get some beauty sleep" he groaned.

Sideswipe smiled, "No amount of recharge could make you look that good, Sunny!" he joked.

That got him up in a flash.

"What did you say?" He was about to lay into his brother verbally when he noticed where he was and why he was there. "You're in one piece?"

"Yeah so're you!" Sideswipe, "Pity though!"

"Shut up slagger." Came the response.

"Shut up yourself!" Sideswipes attention is diverted to the groaning form of Joyride just waking up and a glow from somewhere else in the caves.

They could just barely see that Sunstar was fighting three Necromancers all alone.

For the moment they were stiff and couldn't be bothered to know why they were suddenly in one piece. But they got up and checked on Joyride. "I'll take this one bro'" says Sideswipe, "You go check on your girlfriend."

"She's not my girlfriend you slagger!" exclaims Sunstreaker, trying to hide his slight crush of the white medic from his brother.

"Yeah whatever lover boy, just go help her."

Sunstreaker lowers his menacing gaze from his brothers direction, then saunters off to find out what is happening with Sunstar.

Sunstreaker did not have chance to do anything. She had already dispatched the Necromancers by the time he arrived. She was defending herself from with ruthless efficiency and this sight had made Sunstreaker smirk as he approached her.

She was standing alone in the centre of the clearing of this section of the cave, barely aware of what was going on around her. When she sensed someone. She whirled around ready to fight and was met with a defensive blow from Sunstreaker's well trained reflexes, "No need for that, it's over." He says quietly and calmly.

He quickly grabs her as she collapses against him almost comatose. He can't help but feel a little embarrassed in the arms of a femme for once in his life, as it was rare for him to actually like anyone but his brother.

But Sunstar wasn't offline yet. She came fully online again suddenly and struggled to get out of Sunstreaker's grip. She knew something was wrong somewhere else and started to glow and she wanted out of there.

He did not want to let her go, thinking she may need medical attention. But as soon as she started to glow all her dents, scratches and other scuffs on her armour disappeared.

She however backed away and began to transform into another mode he hadn't seen before. This one was a winged griffin with dual rear mounted fusion cannons.

Near them, the Necromancers had started to awaken again and it got her attention. Sunstreaker realised she wanted to go do something elsewhere and said to her, "You go, I'll deal with this." Just as his brother showed up.

She looked back at the yellow mech and nudged him with her griffin head like a cat would its master for affection then she turned and unfurled her wings. They began to glow brighter than before, it made the Necromancers who were just getting up wince and snarl.

They had no where else to go as Sunstreaker was blocking their escape, and Sideswipe did also, right after he had put Joyride somewhere safe out of harms way.

Sunstar aimed the cannons at the roof of the cave and let loose their fire power, punching a hole through half a mile of solid rock and alien industrial materials to reach the surface. When the dust cleared and light started streaming in, she flexed her wings and took flight, ascending through the upwards tunnel to outside and quickly left. Leaving the twins, an offline Joyride and several snarling Necromancers behind.

*

Up above on the street, Optimus had been caught off guard by Galvetron and lay on the ground about to be shot by his fusion cannon.

Heather was nearby with her truck and wanted to help, only to have her truck lock her out as she tried to get into the driver's cab and take itself to his aid.

All she could do was watch as something she had not anticipated happened.

She turns to look at whether Optimus is seeing this but he has since gone into stasis lock from his injuries. He was too badly damaged from his fight with Galvetron to stay online any longer.

Heather and several others amongst the Autobots, as well as the Decepticons stop and look on as the truck transforms into the visage of a femme long thought dead to them.

"Well, Elita One, I would not celebrate your return from the dead just yet. Take one more step and I will let your beloved have a taste of my cannon at short range." Galvetron was standing over Optimus' offline form ready to shoot him point blank if necessary to get his way. He knew that the old Elita One was a formidable warrior, and though this one would be the same, and so resorted to a dispassionate tactic to have his way on the battlefield. He did this as he knew the Autobots were winning and he would not leave with anything less than a victory today.

The distraction of a golden light shooting skywards from a hole in the ground not too far away was all that Elita One needed to take on Galvetron one on one, when he looked away to see it. She swiftly and wordlessly knocked him down and away from Optimus.

Once the Autobot Commander had been retrieved, the business of fighting between the Autobots and Decepticons started to return to business as normal after the initial shock of her return had worn off.

*

Burnout and Bonecrusher were away from the main fight, but had seen what was going on.

Burnout was rather keen to keep her fight with what was left of the Stunticons, so it was Bonecrusher who went to investigate the hole.

When she reached the rim she looks down and magnified her sensors and found some familiar faces. She turns from the hole and called out to her compatriot.

"Burnout?" I do believe your male companion and his sibling are down there with Joyride." She points down the hole with her small T Rex claws "Now would be a good time to stop playing with those boys, my dear, and come over here to help." Bonecrusher disappears down the hole engaging her jet thrusters to lower herself down into the cave.

"He's nae me boyfriend Lass, just an outlet for me own satisfaction!" she had managed to get out of her vocalisers before Bones' had descended.

Bonecrusher had thought to herself, _'Very well, you just keep thinking that!'_

She finds what she was looking for down in the dimly lit cave below when she arrived at the bottom

"Any chance of a ride?" asks a jovial Sideswipe.

Bonecrusher looks from one twin to the other and comments, "You both need a wash poste haste! You're covered headcase to peds in Necromancer blood." She was wondering how they had taken out three of the ruthless little monsters, and surmised they must have been horribly weakened from the light.

Both twins shrug and watch as Burnout joins them. Having used her own rocket boosters to jump down and engages them to slow down when she gets near the bottom.

Bonecrusher was just loading the twins up onto her back when a missing Flashdance showed up, badly injured.

"We had wondered where you had gotten to?" she comments.

But the look on her face was one of distress and concern, "Somethin's happened to Sonny ya'll, somethin' bad?"

Bonecrusher looks to Burnout, "That must be why Sunstar was in a rush. She must have been going to her mother's aid."

"What?" Burnout is glared at by the large femme T Rex. "Okay, okay, I'll go an' check it out." Burnout then engages her rocket boosters again for maximum thrust and quickly leaves to find where Sunstar had gone. She was loathe to do as she and Sunstar never really got along and didn't like each other much.

Bonecrusher followed not too far behind with three online mechs and Joyride being carried on her back.

*

Sunstar had found Decellion by that time and had attempted to stop her in her tracks with a direct assault.

Decellion however had something she was not going to relinquish, and fights back with more force and ferocity than Sunstar was able to handle.

She quickly blasted the angry and protective femme with her dark lightening, which literally shredded Sunstar's armour, and went to find Galvetron.

Sunstar was still a tad weak from her fight with the Necromancers and took longer to recover from the blast, but by the time she had recovered, Decellion was gone and her mother lay in a crumpled heap nearby.

Burnout turns up not long after that and sees the white femme cradling the mangled offline form of the Roughnecks team leader in her arms. This was one time that the red and black femme wasn't going to argue to annoy Sunstar, being that she had a certain respect for the group leader. She helps Sunstar up and takes the blue femme from her, indicating to the camp to get Sound track medical help.

*

Galvetron had been knocked out by Elita One's punch and was only just coming too when Decellion turned up.

"Galvetron, I think it would now be a prudent time to retreat while we have this." she commented to him.

Still holding his head he looks at what she is holding up.

For a moment he thinks he sees the Power Matrice belonging to Optimus Prime, and attempts to grab it.

Decellion lets him take it as only she knows how to use its energy, and also knows Galvetron would not such a prize as that out of his sight.

"It is not the one you think it is." she tells him. He looks at her curiously, intrigued by her comment.

"It belonged to one of the other females that we fought on Cybertron, this Optimus still has his, I wasn't able to get it, or the one belonging to the other femme. But as a bonus, my Necromancers, did manage to find another one here on Nebulon that is also in my possession." She was happy her pets had achieved their mission and had promptly returned the found Matrice to her when she was en route to find Galvetron.

Galvetron narrows his optics at her, knowing she had something planned; otherwise she would not let him have this Matrix unit.

He looks it over; it is indeed different from the Cybertronian one he had been briefly in possession of before.

More of a blueish tinge to it than the customary golden yellow of the Autobot Mantle.

He looks at Decellion "You are indeed becoming very useful." he says stroking her face with his digits.

She also hopes that the soft spot she has developed for Galvetron and his dark, chaotic charms will not get in then way of her plan.

Galvetron turns to Cyclonus and orders a full retreat of all forces back to Scorponok's secret moon base, and then retreats with all in tow.

Decellion remains behind for a moment to view the surroundings.

She thinks about the white femme who had attacked her in haste, _'Weak fool!'_ she thought, _'Strong as you are, your power isn't even in my league.'_ she laughs after finishing her little mental speech, and then flies off after the other Decepticons to Scorponok's base.

*


	24. Chapter 24 Raw Emotions Revisited

*Raw Emotions Revisited*

*

At the Autobots Nebulon base, there was somewhat of a sombre atmosphere.

When Optimus Prime had been brought in, in his critical condition, everyone had gone quiet, like the life and hope had suddenly gone out the proverbial window.

Joining Ella to help with the repairs of not only Optimus but everyone else, was Brainstorm, his Headmaster partner Arcana, and Nebulonian scientist Hi-Q, also known to most of them as Ginrai.

They were short one medic, as Sunstar was in no shape to help anyone, being a patient herself.

Hi-Q, Brainstorm, Arcana and Ella were currently discussing what they could do to help Optimus.

"Simple repairs are not going to help." Brainstorm was saying to the others.

"Perhaps we could put his mind somewhere while we repair him." Commented Hi-Q.

Ella thought for a second and then turned to her old friend "Perhaps we can use the Powermaster process on him, but who do we have that would willingly binary bond with Optimus?"

Hi-Q thinks for a moment before answering, "I would willingly do it but you would have to help me, and we would have to take the necessary precautions while we are performing the operation. But…" He starts thinking again, "I think that we should use your technology to help him for this, it would be more appropriate."

Ella looks at him and smiles "Noble as ever I see!" He smiles back and she continues, "And yes I suppose Bioroid technology would help. But if we are going to do this," she looks up at Brainstorm as he first suggested the idea. "I will need help preparing everything in the operations room. Brainstorm and Arcana can join us in the repairs as it will give them a chance to see exactly how the technology of my people works."

"Hmm, yes that is a very interesting idea Ella, when we have the chance to discuss more about your people, we should do so. I am quite interested to know more. I would also love to know about their history when you have the chance to tell me about it." queries Brainstorm, with Arcana also nodding.

"Yes I agree." says Hi-Q. Being that the Nebulonian system was outside of the Alliance they had very little or no contact, or even knowledge for that matter of the Alliance and its races. "Perhaps I can convince the elders in the Parliament to contact your Alliance council to consider Nebulon becoming part of your vaunted Alliance and grant us some extra protection against invaders like the Decepticons. Cybertron's Ambassador is here dealing with some business and he knows how to talk to the elders in the Government, he can help."

"Yes. You would be quite welcome to do so Hi-Q, we'll discuss that matter later, but for now, I need my tools and materials for the job we need to do." Replies Ella.

"So what is it exactly that you will be doing to Optimus, Ella?" asks Brainstorm's partner Arcana.

Ella just smiles, "You will see. We will give him an upgrade." She has a little giggle to herself while looking around the room at all the tech devices and spare parts, "It looks like I will not need any extra materials at all, everything I need is right here." She turns to Hi-Q, "You had better go and prepare yourselves for the operation, old friend, have Brainstorm and Arcana help you."

While the three others walk out next door to the operations room to ready themselves, Ella begins wandering around gathering the parts and materials she will need.

*

In another part of the complex, Ella had insisted putting her injured soldiers in their own area away from the others.

Felicia had returned to her robot mode and was watching over her badly injured sister. Sound Track had been brought back to the base DOA, but Ella had insisted on having her hooked up to the life support machines until she could be fixed properly.

As Sound Track's main core was gone, only her back up system remained which was taking the strain of her condition. Very slowly but ever so surely, her nanyte healing system was repairing the damage with the energon it was processing from the life support machines.

Felicia was very worried as their lifelines were tied together, but when she found out about Sound Track, she knew she'd be ok as she herself was still functional. But it didn't stop her from worrying about her sister.

Some of her other team members were in the room including Vanguard and Sunstar who were incapacitated.

Joyride was awake and functional but her vocalisers had been irrevocably damaged and she could no longer talk. Which several of the team thought it was a relief not having to listen to her talk constantly for once.

Bumblebee and Jazz were also with them, having suffered from several injuries, but were fixed and now recovering peacefully.

And Blaster was aside on another platform in a critical condition on life support. As he was being scheduled for reconstruction as soon as the repairs on Optimus were finished.

*

In the rec room, the talk of the day was the re-emergence of Elita One and how the battle had gone.

Burnout was pretty banged up but fine, as was Bonecrusher. Both were now relaxing in another part of the room.

Bonecrusher was finally able to have some spare time and was curled up in the corner out of the way of the others, fast asleep.

The other Autobots had been fixed and were now also in the rec room resting, awaiting news of their comrades as well as talking about recent events.

Springer and Arcee were sitting by themselves.

As was Freefall, who had seemed to finally reach a standing point of mutual respect with Starscream. He was finally regarding her with some respect but not all the time. She for now was keeping her distance but had not forgotten about him, she was still watching him from her seat and reminding him she was the one in control and he hated her for it.

He was still being snide and arrogant and took every chance he got to remind her and anyone else who listened that he thought he was still superior to anyone. Right now though, he was sitting alone away from the others in his Biomode typing into a data pad, making notes about the days events for his own personal records. A habit he had been taught as a Decepticon soldier, something he just kept up with for the sake of it.

Sideswipe was with Burnout, Kup, Cliffjumper, and Sunstreaker and all were at another table playing a game of poker to relax.

Sideswipe was sitting back on Burnout in the corner of the suite as the two had reached a point where they couldn't be bothered being secretive about their actions anymore, and had now openly started showing their affection for each other and didn't care what anyone thought about it.

This openly annoyed Sunstreaker as he was thinking there was now a wall between them. He and his brother usually shared everything and this was something Sideswipe had managed to keep from him for some time and he was angry at Sideswipe.

Burnout picked up on the yellow mech's disgust of her presence with his brother and talked to him across the table, "Ye've nae a reason ta be jealous ye know ladd, all ye have tae do is ge' ye own girlfriend. I'm sure there are plenty of pretty li'l femmes in tha Delta system ye can pick from ye know."

Sunstreaker just glared at the femme whom he thought of as an intruder to the close relationship between himself and his twin and snorted at her. He was angry at Sideswipe and they had fought earlier about the news he had told him and now they sat at opposite ends of the table not talking to each other.

"Sunny?" asks the red twin imploringly, interrupting the game, "You're not still mad at me are you?"

The yellow twin ignores him and turns to Kup, asking for another hand as he discards the ones he currently doesn't want.

Across the table Sideswipe is feeling forlorn and wants his brother's attention back. Burnout notices this and reassures him that it'll be okay.

*

No one had noticed that Hot Rod had slipped out and had gone to watch the others work on Optimus. He'd spotted Ella, as she had stepped aside and was watching Arcana, Hi-Q and Brainstorm work on Optimus.

She had just finished working on the main part of the circuitry and was letting the others do some work while she went and got more parts to use.

It was fortunate that an old friend of the Autobots, also happened to be here on Nebulon doing some ambassador work with the Nebulonian Government and he joins his old friend in conversation.

"So where is everyone?" Spike asks Hot Rod.

"Out on patrol I suppose?" responds Hot Rod, "Fortress Maximus and the rest of the Headmasters left as soon as they were able to after their repairs were done. The Powermasters are in the city helping with the cleanup, and I think the rest are here on the base or probably out on patrol too."

Spike smiles, "Well at least everything still seems to be organised despite Optimus being out of it right now."

"Yeah."

"I'd heard too that you've been through some changes lately?" asks Spike.

"Yep, not really myself anymore, still look the same on the outside though, thank Primus!" He replies relieved.

This amused Spike, "Still the same huh? You really love that paint job!" Hot Rod smiles also and laughs along with his old friend.

Ella had come over to the both of them and waved, before she headed over to gather the thing she was after.

Hot Rod had asked Ella to talk to his old Targetmaster friend before he had left for the battle about joining forces with someone else, seeing as how, miraculously, their connection had been severed without any troubles, leaving Firebolt free to bond with someone else now. "Thanks for talking to Pointblank about Firebolt; I wasn't sure what to do with him now that this virus in my system has changed me. I suppose it was a good thing that the virus eliminated our bond without any psychological damage to either of us." he comments.

"That's fine Hot Rod. Pointblank was after another partner to work with anyway." She turns to see a human with Hot Rod, "Hello? Ella Drake," she says introducing herself and putting a hand out.

Spike replies, "Spike Witwicky. I've heard lots about you from the others on Earth in the last few weeks!"

"Nothing bad I hope!" jokes Ella.

"No!" Spike muses himself, "Anyway I just came in to see how Optimus was doing. Will he be okay, I don't think the Autobots could cope with him dying on them again?"

"He will be fine, and back to operational status shortly." She replies.

"That's good." He looks at the timer on his watch as it starts to beep, "Well that's my cue to go. I have to get back to this political debate in the Senate that Hi-Q sent me to go oversee for him. You really knocked the beehive by suggesting to Hi-Q about getting the Government to discuss joining the Alliance!" he muses.

She smiles back, "It is in the best interests of the system after all. The Decepticons stole something from here and being a member of the Alliance will give them the support they need for protection till we can get that item back."

Spike nods and waves, then leaves, leaving Ella and Hot Rod alone to talk.

Hot Rod begins to talk but stammers and gets Ella's attention as he smiles trying to think of what he wanted to say, "Um…"

"Something wrong?" She queries. She picks up a glimpse of what he wanted to say but had yet to form the words, "I wouldn't worry too much about your new abilities. I have noticed you are using other modes, than your normal transformer ones?" She was loathe to admit that the face of his human Biomode bothered her. It was very similar to Rodine's.

Now he could see what was bothering her, "He he, I was hoping to get some advice from you, but it looks like you need some from me." He could see the distressed look in her eyes.

"I apologize." It was hard for her to talk, "Like I have said before, you remind me of my old mate, and your new Bioroid form doesn't make it any easier to bear his absence, it is pretty much his spitting image."

She was sitting down on a bench, one leg up in front of her with her arms cradled around her leg and her chin resting on her knee looking like she was going to cry.

He changes to his new Biomode and sits next to her putting an arm around her.

"Hey, don't cry, I'm here," He reassures her in a voice that is clearly not his own.

"What?" she brings her head up in response to hearing something she thought she was imagining and then is surprised by his actions.

He had moved fast and leant over to kiss her. She was surprised but did not push him away. Hot Rod wasn't sure whether it was Rodine guiding him thus, or it was himself. He was fond of Ella's company and couldn't help feeling some form of attraction to her. This had been present before Rodine had turned up in his head. He just had this sixth sense about the Bioroid next to him from the start. But right now Rodine was with him, wanting to connect to her, to tell her everything was alright.

When they parted, she was flushed a bright red on her cheeks and he smirked, "I think this is going to be one of the few times I see you embarrassed!" he muses charmingly.

She thins her lips and playfully whacks him. "And it seems you have been hiding things from me? You had help, didn't you?" He starts laughing slightly when he realises she saw Rodine in his mind. "You didn't have your mind shielded well enough when you just touched me, and I could see him in there. Would you mind telling me what's going on?" her tune changed very quickly from embarrassed to stern.

Hot Rod smiles charmingly and begins to regale his story of how his connection to Rodine started and what has been happening.

After he is done he waits for her response, "It is not like this can be picked up from where it was left off you know. And it doesn't make it fair on you as you will never be sure whether it is your own actions or his?" She questions.

Hot Rod shrugs, "Doesn't really bother me to be honest. He asked me to look after you and well it's what I'm trying to do."

She is still somewhat confused over these revelations. But right now she can't deal with it and excuses herself, "They're ready to proceed again." she points to the three scientists who were waiting for her on the other side of the glass in the operating area, "I have to go and prepare now." She leaves him abruptly and goes to clean up.

*

Optimus had his body repaired and upgraded to a new system. He had been that badly damaged that he could no longer function exactly as he used to be.

While Ella worked tirelessly, she had surmised that Galvetron's immense power had been the cause. Recently the fight against Galvetron on Cybertron had taxed him. She noticed that while he had been repaired to operational status after the fight, he still hadn't been 100% and he had not mentioned it to anyone and now it had gotten him into trouble.

She looked back into the observation room at one stage and saw Heather's truck, Lady. While the truck was now able to transform, she could not physically communicate, instead using gestures and hand signals to do so.

Ella had already asked her to submit to a mind reading. When they got back to the base and had found out that it was indeed Elita One's mind in there, not that she wasn't surprised, she thought that by pairing the truck with Heather would bring that old spark out. And her idea had succeeded.

Optimus would be very surprised when he awoke to find that she had returned to the land of functionality again. He would be as surprised as the other Autobots had been when Ella had revealed her true identity to them.

When the operation had been done and Optimus had been left to recover in his own room, Ella started her work on the others who needed their repairs.

Sometime later, Optimus awoke to a clamour of cheers from several of his soldiers who had been allowed to visit and see him in his room. He was very surprised.

"Thank you but all this ceremony is not necessary." He assured them.

They of course were there to see that Kup led him to a surprise they had in store.

"We kind of have a surprise for you." Mused the old soldier.

Optimus still laying back on his recovery birth became curious. "Like what?" He asked.

Kup turned around and looked at one of the mecha nurses that was overseeing Optimus' recovery and asked if it was okay for him to move about. She replied yes but followed along in case of any trouble.

Most of the others went back to their own activities after he had woken up and it left Kup alone with his Commander. The others had taken the hint that Kup would be the one to show Optimus the surprise waiting for him. He helped Optimus out to another private room where someone was waiting for them.

If he had no mask on, Optimus was sure his jaw would've dropped at the very sight of her presence.

He turned back to Kup who had begun to edge himself out the door, "How?" he asked.

"Well I don't even know myself. I suppose it's another of Ella's little miracles!" Kup said as he closed the slide door behind him on the way out.

He turned back to the femme who had just gotten up from the bench on the other side of the room, "Elita!" He said relieved.

She smiled back at him broadly and came to hug her old love.

He was just as happy to have her in his arms again too.

*

In one of the recovery rooms, Vanguard had been fixed and was resting and catching up with her daughter.

"Kinda rubs salt into the wound doesn't it?" asked her mother.

"Yeah." Heather had been somewhat downtrodden when Ella had revealed that her truck had been used as an incubation unit for the resurrection of Elita One. All these years she had this immense crush on the leader of the Autobots, when right under her nose, she had been helping to bring his one and only love back to life.

She wasn't terribly sore about it, just disappointed and was only just now coping with the let down.

"S'ok kiddo, you'll fall in love with someone else!" Said Vanguard.

Heather knew her mother was only trying to cheer her up, and she smiled. She was the one who had come to see her mother here in recovery and to try and cheer her up and now the roles had been reversed.

"Ya know somethin'?" asked Jazz on the other side of the room.

"What?" replied Bumblebee.

"Kinda quiet in med bays like this after a battle without grouchy ol' Ratch' to nag at us!"

"Yeah." Stated Sunstreaker. He was leaning against the frame of the open doorway listening in. He wasn't about to admit though that he was concerned about Jazz's injuries and had come to see if he was okay, so he just stood in the doorway.

"Doin' okay Sunny?" asks Jazz of the tall yellow warrior.

"Yeah, you?"

"Yeah, I'm cool!" the white mech responds.

To this statement, Sunstreaker turns to leave having got what he wanted without having to interact with anyone or show his softer caring side. Jazz notices that he glances a little too long at the white femme in another birth before he leaves entirely and smiles to himself. After all Sunstreaker had been the one who had carried her in after Burnout had taken Sound Track and brought her mother in from the battlefield for medical treatment.

'_Wonder how long it'll be before they hook up?'_ thinks Jazz. _'Wonder how long it'll be before I hook up with someone for that matter!' _he smiled as he laid back and relaxed. He wasn't going to admit that he was kind of lonely and hadn't found any femmes to hang with amongst Ella's group as yet. And he had to admit he was slightly jealous of Sideswipe getting a femme before he had.

*

Vanguard had been released from her birth as had Jazz and Bumblebee and they had all headed straight to the rec room to chat with the others there about the days events.

Vanguard had taken on her human form in order to comfort Heather out of her depressive state.

Arcee was observing the interaction between mother and daughter, and it made her wonder something. She had remembered back to when she, Springer, Ultra Magnus, and Rodimus Prime had been turned into human synthoids by a one Victor Drath. Then she thought of what she knew about Ella and her technology.

"Vanguard?" she asked, "I apologize for interrupting, but...what Ella has done for you, for Optimus, can this be done for anyone? I mean can any person have this Bioroid system added to their hardware to use as they see fit?"

She had not admitted to anyone bar Springer about that day, about how she said she had actually liked being human and had always wondered what it would've been like to stay that way, had they not been rescued from their fate.

Burnout was close by and answered instead, "I'd didnae wan' tae meself in tha beginnin' lass, though 'twas worth it in th'end. If ye ask El' nicely enough, she may help ye if tha's what ye want."

Vanguard smiles, "Well that pretty much said what I would've said!" Heather waives her mother off saying she'll be okay, and then Vanessa goes and sits with Arcee to explain what exactly the process involved.

"So you're functionally able to change backwards and forwards between human and mech like we are now?" asks Springer.

"Depends which program you ask Ella to give you. A normal Bioform is just one form, and the Bioroid conversion, like what she just gave to your boss, is very different. It's more like a shape shifting ability. You can make yourself look like any species but still retain your general appearance. Like so!" Vanessa uses her Bioroid functionality to assume one or two other forms other than her human one, and Arcee and Springer can see that even though each one looked vastly different in appearance, they could still vaguely recognise her.

"There are different levels of upgrades you can get so have Ella run through it all properly if your gonna get it done. It's been a while since I've been through the paperwork and Ella made the original conversion programs for Cybertronians and humans so ask her about it.

They both thank her for her information and she returns to consoling her daughter back in the next booth.

It wasn't long though before Jazz had sauntered over and asked her some questions. He had heard part of Vanessa's conversation with Arcee and Springer and wanted to know more. Right now he and Bumblebee who had joined him, were in their Pretender shells, sidled up next to Heather and Vanessa.

Jazz saw the despondent look on Heather's face and said, "Cheer up chica, there's always tomorrow!" Jazz gives her a slight tap on the nose and she giggles.

"Thanks Jazz! It's just like you to try and cheer everyone up." Comments her mother.

He smiles back, "No problem Van'! So uh...anyway, can Ella do upgrades on mech's like us?" motioning to himself and Bumblebee sitting next to him."

"Dunno 'bout that one? No one has ever come through our group with Pretender shells, so I wouldn't know. Wait till we get back to Earth and I'm sure she can do something for you. It might even make you stronger than you are now, like it has for Hot Rod."

"Yeah I saw him come back from the battle with not a scratch on him." Commented Bumblebee, "It was like he hadn't even fought or anything."

"When we get back to Earth, I might go and tell all this info to Hound and see what he thinks about it!" Said Jazz.

*

Later, upstairs in the facilities for the humanoids, Ella has come to pay Heather a visit as she had adjourned to sleeping quarters to rest.

"Hi." She said from the doorway.

"Hi yourself!" Was the reply from Heather.

"How are you coping with all of this?" Ella asked.

"You might have told me about the truck being who it was!" she exclaimed with a modicum of hurt in her voice. She wasn't as emotionally aggressive as her mother was, Heather was more quietly emotional and she had begun to cry.

"It's okay, really." Ella sits and rubs Heather's back "I'm sure you'll find someone else. I mean after all it was only a crush right?" Ella tries to calm her.

"Yeah, I suppose," she sniffles. "I guess I'm only reacting this way because I've been single for a long time, and since my encounter with Auran, I haven't been with anyone."

"Sometimes life can be lonely. But when you least expect it, love can come and smash your down wide open!" Heather smiled at Ella's colourful metaphor.

"I hope that will happen to me then!" Heather jokes.

"I'm sure it will, so you keep that hope alright."

There was a knock at the door and a tall very muscular gentleman with blue/black hair and bright blue eyes asked, "May I come in?"

Ella having not seen Optimus in his new Biomode yet smiles. Heather on the other hand is aghast, "Optimus is that you?" She questions.

"Yes it is." He comments matter of factly. He looks in Ella's direction, "Do you mind if I talk to her a moment?"

"Go ahead, I was just leaving anyway. I have something to do myself." And with that Ella left them to it.

Optimus smiles faintly at Heather, "I, uh...just wanted to thank you for your help with Elita. Ella told me of how you helped to nurture her back into existence without fully realising it, and I wanted to give you a formal thank you for it."

"Your welcome." She replied back, happy for his heartfelt comments.

"I understand that this situation may have put you into some emotional dire straights also."

"I'm fine. I will get over it. I mean it's not every day that the one person, albeit in your case, a mech, in the world that I had a crush on, happened to be the love of a pink truck I was babysitting for the better part of my life!" she muses.

At this Optimus laughs, "Elita sends her compliments also. For now her vocalisation is inoperative but she sends her love to you for your help. She however could not fit in the hallways here, but she wanted to let you know that she will be returning to Cybertron with myself and some of the others who came with us to Nebulon."

"Oh?" She says puzzled. "I suppose I should've expected that too."

"She said when she is able to, she will come and visit, but I cannot persuade her to stay on Earth as she wants to get right back into the fighting again!" he says exasperated.

This amuses Heather, "I take it you two were bonded, is that the word for it? It certainly seems that way!"

"Yes." He pauses, "Although then she was as much of a handful as she is now, she is still very stubborn and independent!"

"I'm sure! I'm no different, I suppose that is why Ella chose me to do the job. I'm more tolerant of Ella's ways than my mother is, so I guess it's just something for me to get over and move on from."

"Perhaps." Optimus gets up from his seat on the edge of the bed and puts his hand out to Heather to shake it. She responds in kind and puts hers out also. He puts her hand between his two large, strong but gentle hands and thanks her again then leaves, allowing Heather to turn off the lights to her apartment and go to sleep for the night.

*

Downstairs and outside on a balcony, Hot Rod is over looking the cityscape and marvelling at it in wonder. He should be out there he thinks, racing down those streets, feeling the wind in his vents, being free as a bird. But no. He has been thinking about his little stunt all day since Ella left and has mulled around because of it.

While the others who could, have gone into the city for the night for some downtime, he has stayed behind in the hopes that he might catch Ella again and talk to her. But she has come to him instead.

"I'm sorry about leaving so abruptly before." She said, he was startled and jumped slightly. She had come down to see him after she had talked to Heather and realised she shouldn't have ended their conversation before and so she continues it now.

"Oh, hi!" he comments.

"Did I startle you?" she queries.

"Nah, I'm fine!" doing his best not to let his embarrassment show.

She smiles, "Well if we are going to continue where we left off, then I think it would be best if you come down here." She indicated for him to use his Biomode to change his size.

Hot Rod had decided though to only change his size but not his form. What Ella could see before her was a human sized version of his normal Autobot self.

"Is there any particular reason you look like this still?" she asked.

"I just wanted to test a theory. I was just wondering, that if I did look like this all the time, would you still wonder about whether he was there or not or think about him while you were kissing me?"

"I'm not actually sure?" she queried of herself, "But I'm game to find out if you are!" she comments playfully.

"Sounds like a challenge!" he smirks back

"Yes, very!" Came her reply.

*


	25. Chapter 25 Rest And Recovery

*Rest and Recovery*

*

On the far side of the Hive moon, the Decepticons are recovering from the wounds inflicted on them by the recent battle.

Galvetron is entertaining a private audience with Decellion in regards to the Power Matrices she had recovered and handed over to him. He knew she was up to something and intended to find out what. He was already disgusted with himself on some level that he had developed some compassionate feelings towards this alien mechanoid femme.

But that wasn't going to stop him getting the information he wanted.

She wasn't going to reveal herself so easy either and he knew it. So far she hadn't bothered to fight back much as she knew he couldn't hurt her. So she just let his anger get out of control.

She had a sickening yet heartfelt fascination with seeing this side of others. Chaos was like her best friend and she revelled in its feeling.

He had her pinned her to the wall.

She couldn't help herself and so blurted out with a somewhat sultry voice, "Well now that you've got me what are you going to do with me?"

He was already beyond angry, seething with fury at her refusal to tell him what he wanted to know, and now she was making jokes. He looked at her for a moment then just burst out laughing.

However the both of them had already crossed the line. As much as they both wanted to achieve their secret plans, they had developed feelings towards each other. No matter how much they were trying to avoid it happening, it was indeed inevitable.

Galvetron had relaxed his tense arms against the wall and she had softened her composure somewhat. There was that moment of silence between them they were both dreading. Both were smiling at each other at the obviously dangerous place they had both arrived at.

Decellion however had heard someone outside the door to Galvetron's quarters and looked in that direction. Galvetron was momentarily distracted by the beep of the door, and she quietly slipped out of his grasp and moved over to sit on a side bench as though nothing had just happened between them.

He turned to allow his guest to enter. It was Soundwave reporting to Galvetron on his mission.

She sat and waited while Galvetron talked with Soundwave about information he had gathered from the planet.

Decellion listened intently while all the information was told by Soundwave in his monotone vocalisation. Galvetron ordered Soundwave back to the planet to continue his surveillance.

Before Soundwave left he glanced over at Decellion sitting in repose on a side table and just stared at her. Suspecting what the two may have been up to all alone together, but not really caring as it was not his current concern.

Decellion cocked her head at him and raised a brow curiously, sensing some telepathic curiosity from the Decepticon. But he turned to leave instead, deciding to keep what he had learnt about them to himself for now.

After he had left, Galvetron turns to look at Decellion and she says playfully "Now where were we?"

*

Back at the Autobot Base, the various teams were coming and going on patrol to find the whereabouts of the other Decepticons they hadn't already captured.

Brainstorm, Arcana and Hi-Q had successfully converted Optimus Prime's mechanoid chassis to that of a Bioroid, with Ella's help. And now several of the Autobots who were curious about the technology were also asking to have the same process done to them.

Ella was amused by but said not everyone needed to have it done and stated that those who would be lucky enough to work with her on Earth would get it first if they so desired. There were many disappointed faceplates, as well as smiles all around.

Optimus had admitted to himself that his new body felt different than it did before and was having some difficulty dealing with the strange new sensations. Ella assured him that he was still his old transformer self though and he left it at that. However he did assure her that if he had any future queries he would get in contact with her, as he and part of his troops would be leaving soon to return to Cybertron again.

Many were happy to have Elita One back again. Optimus had enjoyed his meeting with an old love and was grateful in one way that she wanted to return to the battlefront, but not so grateful that he may have to worry about her welfare again. He was assured by the medics that her ability to vocalise would come back in time and that he was looking forward to it so they could converse normally and catch up properly.

Heather meanwhile was looking on at the two trying to converse with each other, but was also being teased Burnout.

"So lass did ye ge' up te anythin' ye'd like te tell us about?" Burnout asks.

She narrowed her eyes and turned to face Burnout, Heather was quite used to Burnout's her dirty frame of mind by now, but didn't appreciate her bad timing with her comment. "Nothing happened you idiot and never will, now if you don't mind go and bother someone else!" It didn't help that Heather was still a little emotionally raw about recent events and Burnout bringing it up wasn't helping her to forget it.

She supposed she didn't have to snap at Burnout like she did. And storming out of the room wouldn't have helped either.

Vanguard just happened to be present, "You have this insatiable need to be antagonistically stupid don't you? It's no wonder you are with Sideswipe. You know he's no different than that at times!" And she switches to her Biomode and goes after Heather, "Heather, wait up?" She calls out.

Burnout just shrugs indifferently like water off of a duck's back.

Meanwhile Sideswipe walks in and comments, "My audio's are heated up, has anyone been talking about me?" he says slightly amused while he muzzles Burnout neck casing affectionately.

"Vanguard is right Burnout." Ella states dryly from a nearby table reading from a data pad without even looking up. "You have to learn not to be so antagonistic towards everyone."

Sideswipe looked at the femme and asked, "Did I miss something?"

"Nev'r mind lad." The femme replies, patting her lover's head case affectionately.

"Oh and Sideswipe, go and patch things up with your brother already!" Ella asks the red mech, "I'm sure Jazz won't want to take you two home while you're both arguing and have it affect your fighting on the battlefield."

Sideswipe looks into space for a second then nods, "Yeah, might as well do that now then." He moves out of Burnouts arms being around him and goes to leave, "Have you seen him though?" he asks Ella.

"In the medical bay with Sunstar. Since you pushed him away recently he's gone to talk to someone else who he thought would appreciate his conversation, or try to at least." He leaves shortly after that and doesn't hear the conversation between Ella and Burnout.

"Oh?" says a curious Burnout.

Ella glares at the femme and says sternly, "Don't even think about berating either of them about their newfound friendship or I'll make sure you never get to see him again," She motions to Sideswipe who had just walked out, "Do I make myself clear Rusty?"

"Yeah, crystal!" she states. Ella was one mech that she wasn't going to bother defying as she knew she had a myriad of ways to find punishment for her if she didn't listen. She goes to sit down somewhere in the rec room and doesn't see the blue femme walk in.

"Home sweet home ya'll!" the femme calls out to Ella, "Well almost!"

"I see that all those operations we did on you has brought out a sense of humour to your dead pan vocalisers Sound Track." Comments Ella.

The femme smirks.

"Well 't'is needed seein' as how the lass was a stick in tha mud b'fore anyway!" comments Burnout.

"An' I hear ya'll are bedding with a certain red mech now Rusty?" Sound Track was now unaffected by Burnout's trying to taunt her, in fact she felt on top of the world, like it wasn't weighing down on her. She supposed it was because all the responsibilities she had to shoulder as a protector of her Matrice had been removed. But she knew eventually she would have to go and get it back. But for now until Ella had gotten some information on its whereabouts for her, she would enjoy the time she had.

Sound Track had been leaning against the wall with one arm and the other on her waist, but then goes and sits next with others in another booth.

Several others in the room welcome Sound Track back, "Hey ya'll, did ya miss me!" she says.

"Ah was wonderin' when you'd return to tha land of tha livin'!" jokes her twin.

"Great ta see ya too, Flick'!" Sound Track wraps her arm around her twins head in a playful headlock and scuffs up the paint job on Flashdance's head casing.

Of the Roughnecks team members who were in the room, they all start to laugh as they are happy to see their leader with a smile on her face and a laugh on her vocalisers. It has been a very long time since any of the older members have seen her like this, and many of the younger, newer members have never seen her like it at all, so were a little surprised. But they all took it in their stride and joined in on the mirthful activities Sound Track was inviting them to do.

But for the moment, Sound Track stops when she feels Ella's gaze. She switches to her Biomode and sits down next to her boss.

"So how's Stella ya'll?" She asks.

Ella looks at the blue femme, "Well," She sighs, "She'll live, but she's in a state of shock. Decellion tore her up pretty bad. Despite the fact she tried to do something noble to save you, she got iced herself. The injuries were too much for her healing system and so she went in self induced stasis lock right after Burnout took your incapacitated body out of her arms. Sunstreaker brought her in after that."

"Ah don' think ah like tha fact he's taken an interest in mah girl ya'll but whaht can ya do, these things do tend ta happen now don' they! Ah'll have ta say thanks ta him when ah get tha chance ta though!"

"Well Sunstreaker is not at all the psycho killer as a fair few mechs think he is. He does have some compassion in him otherwise he wouldn't have joined the Autobots."

"Ya, I s'pose!" She wanted to continue but Ella interjects her.

"And it seems your daughter isn't the only one who has an admirer!"

Sound Track's face changes from serious to amused, "Yeah so ah can see!" Without turning her head, instead using her sonic resonance ability, as they could still not fix her blind optics when she was in for medical repairs, she scans Jazz.

Across the room Jazz smiles back confidently when Sound Track turns to look in his direction. He had on occasion glanced more than once at Sound Track.

She changes back to her robot mode and goes to join Jazz for some conversation, but before she leaves she whispers down to Ella, "Ah s'pose ah bettah go say hi!"

Jazz had to admit to himself that the new dark blue paint job on this femme was more to his liking.

Ella is rather amused and laughs to herself as she returns to inputting information into her data pad. Since allowing her team to be made known to the Autobots, she has watched as it seems they are slowly taking male companions for themselves. _'Not too surprising though!' _She thinks to herself, glad that she had rescinded her little rule about no fraternisation.

*

In the medical bay.

Sunstar was the last transformer to be operated on, but not all her systems had begun to heal. She was suffering from some mental anguish also and would need more time to recover than the others had.

Over the last few hours Sunstreaker had been sitting behind the glass in the observation room that was adjoined to the private room Sunstar had been provided with.

They had been talking earlier but now he was in the observation room again. She knew he was still there but she was kind of lost in her own little mental world right now and didn't care.

She had been examined beforehand and found to be suffering from some psychological trauma as a result of the battle.

She knew it. First there had been her claustrophobia that had gotten to her in the caves and then she had felt excruciating pain through her mental link with her maternal unit, only to become severely stressed over finding her chest ripped open the way it was. She had felt personally responsible as she had not been able to get there in time to do anything.

She also had a moment of loss of control and had openly attacked Decellion in her grief without thinking. And right now she was feeling pretty sorry for herself for her failures and kept under observation by the Doctors for it.

And Sunstreaker was still just watching her. He had volunteered himself when the medical staff had asked Optimus for someone to watch over her.

Sunstreaker was enjoying the quiet until his twin walked in and disturbed it.

At first Sideswipe said nothing and just observed his brother watching the femme. But then he spoke, observing the glass panel, he made a joke, "You know if you're shopping for a pet to take home and keep, you'll have to feed her and look after her yourself 'cause I sure as the Pits am not doin' slag to babysit anyone!"

Sunstreaker turned around and glared at him, "Go away." he seethed.

"Nice to know my presence is still wanted." He said softly, trying to get his brother to talk to him.

"Why couldn't you have just told me you were messing around with that femme? I wouldn't have cared if you'd just bothered to say something, just anything, I probably would've shared her too. Why did you have to keep it a secret?" He sounded hurt, now Sideswipe knew why Sunstreaker was annoyed, he hated being left out.

"I dunno Sunny; maybe I just wanted her for myself. Just something for me for once instead of having to share everything like we usually do." He broke his conversation for a moment to place his hands on his brothers shoulders, "You're not gonna hate me for being stupid and selfish are you?"

"Wouldn't be the first time you idiot!" Mused the yellow Lamborghini. "Just don't leave me out of the loop next time."

"Does that mean I'm your brother again?" Sideswipe asks curiously.

"I suppose!" says Sunstreaker smiling.

Sideswipe is happy that he at least got that. He notices his brother has turned his attention to the white femme in the recovery room again. "So is she gonna be my bro's new play toy?"

"You're being stupid again!" He states, "And no she's not that kind of femme. She's much better than that slagging red femme you settled for." Sunstreaker didn't really like Burnout all that much and wasn't bothering to hide his vehemence.

At that comment Sunstreaker gets a playful head lock from his brother and they begin to rough it up in the observation room, once again enjoying their play time together.

*

Sometime later at the base.

Ella had taken Sound Track aside for some discussion. They had been talking at length on a retrieval plan of the Power Matrice that was taken from her, as well as the one that was taken from Nebulon.

Sound Track was not bothered when Ella had asked her to let it go for now as it wasn't the time to retrieve it. She was very happy about, but she did listen to Ella, as she trusted her judgement in the matter. They had been friends for a long time and she was quite used to Ella's mysterious ways.

So for now she would just enjoy her free time from being in service to it, but it didn't give her free time from being in command of the Roughnecks team.

Some of the other Autobots, who were still recovering from injuries, were listening to them talk, including Optimus Prime. He was quite intrigued by the story of their being more than one Power Matrice and was mulling over his own unit, looking it over and wondering, that in all his years of being in service to it, had never even known there was anything unique about it.

Blaster, having been fixed back to operational status and given a new Earth style vehicular alt mode, a News van had joined them for the rest time they were getting and was also listening to Ella's story.

Ella is telling them another story.

"All I know that there is a mixture in your culture as well as ours, that Vector Sigma was reusing the information from our time." She starts.

"There are 12 in total, with a fabled 13th. We in the Alliance have possession of a few of them; you, yourself Optimus have one of the second level ones that we refer to as the Matrix of Wisdom. The other two that go with it, are the Matrix of Courage, Bones has that one, and the Matrix of Serenity, was what Decellion took from Sound Track." she continues after a pause. "There are others, two higher first level ones representing chaos and order, and the seven lower ones representing elements of creation; fire, water, earth, forest, metal, wind, and lightning. And any machine or Bioroid, in particular the chosen for each singular, can only possess them.

"You mean to tell me that a Decepticon might be able to possess one of those things too!" blurts out Sideswipe who had just come in on the conversation with his brother, who was helping Sunstar to a seat.

Sound Track raises a brow at Sideswipe's comment and notices what Sunstreaker is doing but doesn't stop consuming her energon.

"That would be a correct assumption Sideswipe," She motions to Freefall, "As you can see with Freefall's alt mode, that is how the possessors can ultimately be affected by the Matrice if they allow it influence them in such a fashion. Freefall doesn't need to have a dragon alt mode, but she is just that much in tune with the Matrice she possess, she allows the spirit it possesses to influence her appearance."

Freefall just gives the staring mechs in the room an emotionless look. She knew many of them often saw her as a Decepticon. As the ones she had on her current team happened to be ex Decepticon soldiers, Starscream included. He was currently sulking in the corner alone, but listening in on the chatter, hoping to gleam some useful information to use for himself.

"Can she change back from that?" asks Optimus.

"Yes." Freefall suddenly talks, "I cen teke out Metrece Device et eny time end change beck to normal." She states with her strong Russian accent. For a moment she gets up and opens her chest case and removes the unit she has in her possession.

As soon as she does, her size shifts down to her old self. The same size as most of the others in the room and her armour morphs back to that of a flyer mech, with an alien jet alt mode.

At this turn of events, Starscream smiles. This has given him an idea. An idea he will follow up later.

Ella asks Freefall for her permission and then regales her story.

She told them that Freefall had once been a member of the enemy Dominion that they were now fighting, but had been captured and incarcerated after the war. She had spent time as a civilian in the Alliance and had even had a family. Her offspring being her son, Nightfall, a member of her personal team, who was currently back on Earth, and her partner was deceased, killed by Dominion raids.

It had been discovered after her incarceration that she was one of the chosen. It had also been discovered that she was once a Bioroid before she had been captured and converted by the Dominion into one of their war Generals and had abandoned them at the end of war after she couldn't take their orders anymore. When she had been converted back, she had been allowed to carry a Matrice device and has had it ever since.

This information had changed the opinions of Freefall for some, but not for all of them.

It didn't bother her whether they had her approval or not. She had returned her Matrice unit and closed her chest casing not long after Elle had started talking about her past and sat back down to enjoy her hot oil.

Many were interested in hearing more but Ella knew it would have to wait till another time.

Heather had walked in with news about their transport home. She had wandered of an hour ago to find out who she could contact for a lift. Most of them had not discovered yet that their ride to Nebulon in the first place had been destroyed by the Decepticons during the battle.

She turned to Heather and asked, "So who will our illustrious escorts be?"

She looked at the Bioroid strangely but amused, "Do you even need to ask? I know you're a telepath, you could've just gotten the information from me already!"

Ella laughs, "Well sometimes it doesn't hurt to actually ask now does it!"

"I guess not!" was Heathers reply, "Anyway we have two ships, Countdown and Touchdown, with their pilots en route to the Rhoqion system and they're only too happy to pass by here and drop us off on Earth on their way through to their destination."

"Hey what happened to the ship we came here in? Can't we take that one back?" asks Cliffjumper curiously.

Jazz replied, "Cliff', that one got blasted by tha Deceps durin' tha fight!"

"Oh Great!" He exclaims, "Well I hope that whatever ship you put me on, you put that bozo Starscream on the other one."

From across the room Starscream yells, "I heard that you miserable wretch of a minibot."

"Yeah and what're you gonna do about it!" Cliffjumper yells back.

Starscream would've gotten up to defend his honour had Freefall not made optical contact with him first. He glared at her openly, and for a moment she thought she would have to physically intervene, but he didn't make a fuss, he quietened down and decided to ignore the small red Autobot.

But Cliffjumper wouldn't let it go, and it was Bonecrusher who bopped him on the head from the booth behind him and just left him there sitting in his seat, now offline, much to the chagrin of Jazz who was sitting next to her and had been startled by Bones when she had hit Cliffjumper so suddenly.

"Bonecrusher!" exclaimed Prime from across the room, "That was completely unnecessary!"

"And I think it was necessary in order to create a quick solution to a potential escalation of a serious problem." Stated Bones intelligently.

Ella also defended Bonecrusher by saying, "Cliffjumper is fine Optimus, Bones' didn't hurt him at all. He'll be fine and he'll wake up soon enough!" She mused.

*

Later everyone met out on the launch pad for the arrival of the two ships that would transport The Roughnecks back to Earth.

Optimus Prime had explained to Ella that his team would shortly be leaving to return to Cybertron to not only makes preparations for any future attacks, but also to welcome the diplomats that he knew would be coming from the Alliance to oversee Cybertron joining the Alliance of planets.

He had left the duty of watching out for the Decepticons here to Fortress Maximus. As well as the duty of dealing with the Nebulonian Government, now that Spike had already talked with them about the prospect of joining the Alliance.

Fortress Maximus had decided to send an emissary of his Autobots team along with Government representatives to the Alliance Council on Alpha Prime to plead their case and hopefully be listened to.

Spike in the mean time had considered returning to Cybertron with Optimus but had instead asked his wife, Carly and son Daniel about perhaps returning to Earth. They had wholeheartedly agreed. Spike tied off all his loose ends here on Nebulon and helped his family with all their possession onto one of the ships in the cargo bay when they were able to.

Ella had volunteered to take Jazz and the wounded members of his team back to Earth to recover for the time being.

However Kup and Blurr chose to stay behind with their Targetmaster groups. Kup and Hot Rod made their fond farewells of each other and showed the respect for each other they had developed as teacher and student over the time they had been friends. Hot Rod was sorry to say goodbye to his other friend Blurr for the time being and wished him well too.

Optimus had agreed with Ella over the choice as the majority of them were not in any fighting condition and Ella also had the facilities on Earth to cope with a good recovery for them and hopefully keep them out of trouble. Jazz had taken Optimus' sound advice and would take any help Ella was willing to give to help him and his team not only recover, but also to protect Earth as best they could.

Bonecrusher and Freefall, even though former members of the Roughnecks, and now team leaders in their own right, did not decide to return to the Delta system where they were usually assigned. They both decided to come back to Earth, mainly because both their respective teams were there.

When the injured had been loaded onto one of the ships, and the other mechs had wandered onto the other, the ships and their captains prepared for take off to travel to Earth.

*

They had not however been in the company of their ship at all times and an intruder had snuck upon the ship that the healthy mechs had gotten onto.

That intruder was ravage. Upon orders from Soundwave, he was to travel undetected to Earth and infiltrate Ella's base of operations and find out as much about it as he could and report back to him on a regular basis.

Soundwave had advised the mech panther that he would be travelling not too far behind.

As he had been one of the Decepticons that had been badly damaged in the battle with the Autobots, Galvetron had insisted his loyal soldier be fixed almost immediately upon returning to Scorponok's base when the first wounded came back. Having listened to his Commander, Hook of the Constructicons had rebuilt him almost entirely lest he be scrapped by Galvetrons wrath if he did not do it quickly enough.

Soundwave had been fixed speedily and sent back into service as soon as he was able, but on a secret mission for Galvetron. His Commander had given him those orders based on a small amount of information he had gleamed from Decellion, of whom Soundwave did not trust one bit.

He had been given a new alt mode for his mission to be carried out, which happened to be a dark blue and gold Lockheed Martin SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, something that Soundwave had always liked the design of, despite his distaste of humans in general.

While Soundwave was flying not far behind the space ships, Ravage was hiding on the ship observing everything that was going on, and recording any information he deemed valuable to the Decepticon cause. He was also biding his time; he knew that he would have to be extra careful to remain undetected amongst so many enemy individuals that knew his patterns for so long if he was going to be successful in his mission. But if he remained hidden then he would not have to worry about ever being discovered.

*

Galvetron and the rest of his group that had come along to Nebulon, had all been repaired by their medic and would soon be returning to Charr.

This little trip to this Primus forsaken planetary system, as Galvetron had called it, had turned out to be a nuisance in regards to the fight with the Autobots, but also a bonus, as he now had two Power Matrice devices in his possession.

Now all he had to do was collect the other ten. He would save the one Matrice for last, and that would be Prime's. He wanted to show the Autobot Commander the futility of his disgraceful noble cause by crushing his hopes and also taking his Matrice and destroying the Autobot forces all at once.

He had managed to get some information out of Decellion about how to combine all the devices into a mighty weapon that was capable of destroying whole planets and also suns, and this interested him greatly. Little did he know that Decellion was once again manipulating him to do the dirty work for her and then she would grab the Matrices for herself when Galvetron had them all. He had two now, all she had to do was wait, and pretend to continue to serve him.

He however did not know yet that she herself had one of theses matrices on her person.

Before Galvetron gave the call to leave, he was contacted by Soundwave and told the mission was coming along, his agent had been planted amongst them and the ships were on their way back to Earth.

At this time he had been in his quarters and was using his personal viewing screen. He then contacted the bridge of his warship to take off, after congratulating Soundwave on his partial accomplishment. And then he turned his attention to the guest present in his room.

Decellion had mentioned other places that may have Matrices as well as one place she knew of in the core of the Alliance.

She had felt disgusted with herself, that she had even revealed that small amount of information to him, but it was required if she was going to get him to do the dirty work for her and help collect the Matrices.

But after Soundwave had left the first time when they were alone together, she and Galvetron had continued with their rough play.

She had thought to herself, she might as well use him for more than just a tool towards her goal of power, and had showed him what Bioroids do for fun by sharing herself with him.

It had been a different experience for him, one that he relished in and wanted more of, so now he kept her close by at all times. And this pleased her to no end.

*


	26. Chapter 26 Homeward Bound

*Homeward Bound*

*

Some old friends of Heather's from her time as a space freighter pilot, had the illustrious pleasure of escorting Ella, her team and a few Autobots and some other mecha, along with another ship, with some wounded on board, back to Earth.

Both of the ships, while they had sentient minds of their own, were not transformers. Countdown and Touchdown were carrier class freighters and were like brothers to each other. Both had known Heather for a while and were fond of her company as she had worked with both of them at some stage in the past. Both were happy to accept her call when it came over a request line at the refuel base in the Delta system where Heather used to work.

Currently Heather was on the bridge with the Captain, also an old friend of hers, and he was letting her take the reigns for a short while to relive some old times and converse with both the ships.

The rest of the travellers were elsewhere on the ship, taking time out until they reached Earth.

The mechs in medical stasis were with Touchdown, while the rest were on Countdown.

Most were relaxing in the rec room on the ship. Burnout, not one for travelling anywhere unless she had solid ground under her feet, was sitting at the bar there and having some drinks to make her fuel tank feel better.

One traveller, Starscream had wandered off on his own, to get away from Flashdance's animecha Watchdog, who had taken to following him around the ship to keep an eye on him. After wandering for almost an hour to get away from the accursed stalker, he had found himself at the cargo bay.

He was well away from the noise of the others and was enjoying the total silence except for the light noise of the electrical devices around him. Thinking to himself how to get away from Ella and her mechs.

Starscream opened the doors of the cargo bay area and was bothered by the fact the mecha dog had followed him in there.

He thought about terminating the animal, but again something in his mind stopped him and so he just tolerated the animal's presence for now. He was continually getting annoyed with all the restraints he found in his system, and he thought to himself he will have to run a full system diagnostic when he got back to Earth to see what had really changed in him.

Looking over the room he found a place to sit back and relax and enjoy the peace and quiet of being alone. He once again looked over the nearly full room of crates and he sneered. He had thought he was alone.

Over in the corner almost hidden, was Ella. She had a data pad in her hand and was checking numbers and tags on the items here and had not yet noticed him.

He smiled, perhaps he could surprise her.

She announces herself, "And just how long did you think you were going to hang around here without me noticing!"

Starscream only sneers even more, "Well I was thinking about taking you as a hostage and bargaining for my freedom!" He jokes.

Ella smiles, "Good to see you have a sense of humour Starion and I understand you're your incarceration is not easy for one who is used to being free, but wait it out, you'll see. It will be worth it, I promise!" She replies.

He scoffs, "Why do you even call me that ridiculous name? I am Starscream, Pride of the Cybertronian skies and the best damn flyer the Decepticons ever had."

"And no doubt you still think you deserve to be leader of the Decepticons?" She retorts.

"Of course I…" He states confidently before Ella cut him off.

"Contrary to what you may have thought about yourself before Starscream. I would like to think you are better than that now. You have been given an opportunity to better yourself, and there is more power and recognition in it for you if you play the game through to the end." She paused for a moment, "And the reason I call you that name is because it was my sons name, well one of them anyway, and you remind me of him, quite a lot in fact."

Starscream feels disgusted with himself for allowing his proud steely resolve to soften and smile at the small figure below him. He could easily squash her and he would be rid of her and this pitslag she is putting him through, but the compulsion to do so leaves as soon as it arrives in his mind. He hates what this incarceration is doing to him.

He huffs to himself and gives up. He transforms to his Biomode form, crosses his arms and sits down on the nearest crates. He watches Ella as she continues to put information into the data pad in her hand. "What are you doing?" he asks curiously.

"Just taking stock of what the war effort on the Roqion front needs!"

"And what in the pits is Roqion?"

"It's just another alien race that is part of the Alliance Starscream. If you do end up sticking around, you'll have the pleasure of meeting a few eventually."

"I don't even like the sound of their name, what makes you think I'd have any interest in them?"

"Their core planet and most of the other planets in their system have energon crystals growing on them naturally!" Ella smirks at him.

Starscream looks at her and his lower jaw drops slightly.

*

Back on Earth, Laura's cousin Hannah was now a permanent resident of Port Angeles. Hanna had signed up for college here, but today was her day off and she would spend it with her cousin and their friends at the local mall.

Back home she had finished school ahead of everyone else when she was 16. She would have joined a college earlier but due to a horse riding accident she had spent the next two years in surgery, learning how to use her legs again.

This accident was what broke up her parent's relationship, although it was already failing, it was the event that made them singles again, going their separate ways due to irreconcilable differences.

Her father initially rejected the idea of allowing Hannah to have nanofibres injected into her lower spine to help her walk again, but it was the sign of the times.

Many people were getting cybernetic alterations and enhancements, but not everyone could afford the extremely expensive procedures that were involved. And it was still a relatively new technology, still experimental, and still not accepted by everyone, especially the die hard religious types and extremists, and naturalists like her father.

Her father had said no because they could not afford it and his pride wouldn't let him take charity but Ella had softened him up and paid for the whole procedure and even Hannah's tuition. Of which she was glad, she could get herself a part time job while she was here and earn some money towards her studies or paying Ella back.

But she did have an ulterior motive to studying here in the States and taking the courses near to where her cousin lived. She was quite game to meet an Autobot by the name of Cliffjumper, her favourite one of the lot, and the best as far as she was concerned. She was hoping that being around her cousin long enough might lead to a meeting between them.

*

Several days later the ships had returned to Earth. The ships had taken the opportunity to rest and refuel at Dragon Valley Base under anonymity from the general populace as the ships had come in on stealth and were not seen landing or taking off from the base.

Ella had noticed in the time they were away that the others of her team had also returned. And other teams were visiting also.

One of the Deltronian Droidian caretakers was here on the base with her young charges. The school group of young mecha were driving the current base residents crazy with a multitude of questions.

One such Droidian was Oilslick, a young femme, daughter unit of Switchblade and Octane, who were both currently back on the base. Other members of the team Switchblade was enlisted with, the Spyhunters, were also on the base.

Ella thought they may have been here for social reasons.

They operated out of England from her son, Lucas's estate in the upper English countryside. They operated secretly, as another group of Autobots, the Pretenders, worked from there through the United Nations, and they worked mainly with MI6.

Peter Rawlings, now Prowl, was visiting the base today to hand in his report to Ella about his recent activities with her son Adam, having been informed of her immanent return. He was accompanied by the rest of the group as they were also here today and were ogling the Autobots who had come off the interstellar freighter with interest.

Peter remembered who the group, the Spyhunters were, as it was that group he had first worked with as a human cyborg with Ella's organisation, nearly 100 years ago now.

He espied several mechs he recognized and some new ones he didn't. He recognized one mech in particular that used to irritate him beyond measure. A male Autobot named Heatwave, who was now leader of the group.

Raymond, who was currently standing with Peter, comments quietly in his team mates audios, "Primus help us all!" He complains, "Please do not come over here!"

Prowl's human face did not show any emotion as the mechanoid approached, but Raymond had a 'hide me now' look on his face. He did try and think nice, friendly thoughts about Heatwave but he didn't have any he could think of.

For some reason the mech came over to greet some of the new faces he'd spotted coming out of the ship and to brag about himself, but then he spotted a familiar face.

Sound Track had seen him before he'd seen her and squirmed in disgust. When he saw her she said, "If ah'd known ya'll'd be here, ah would've gone and killed mahself!"

"Isn' tha wha'ye did tae begin with lass?" jokes Burnout.

She knew that in the past, there had been a situation, a falling out of sorts between two bond mates. Something that was rare for mechanoids. But at the time, Sound Track had been pronounced terminated, and had somehow brought herself back from it, managing to sever the connection between herself and Heatwave. It had worked out for the best as she no longer wanted to be with him, only that he wouldn't quit trying to get her back.

He struts right over to her and puts his arm around her. "Now, babe, you know I'm the best there is and ever was, and that we belong together. I am you're one and only love after all!"

"Worst mistake ah evah made too!" The look of disgust on her face is evident for all to see. "Now if ya'll don' get ya hands offa me ah'm gonna do somethin' to ya for sure." She said dryly. He doesn't let go and she grabs him and throws him into the nearest wall.

Ella sighs at a groaning Heatwave and says to him, "Well she warned you didn't she?"

Heatwave shook his head case and got up again. He walked over to Sound Track and started talking to her again. "That's my girl, as dark and dangerous as ever!" He smirks.

She had moved away several steps but then stopped mid stride and Heatwave not taking the hint, ran into her when she stopped suddenly. She sighs, turns to face him, and says very coldly and angrily almost yelling, "Ah'm not ya girl anymore Heatwave, would ya'll take a hint an' GET LOST!" she looks back at Jazz exiting the ship, "Ah'm with someone else now."

His expression goes from puzzled to jealousy, and he says flatly, "Oh!" he pauses, "Who?"

Sound Track points to Jazz and says, "Him." Jazz didn't hear much of what was going on and wonders why she had pointed at him. She wanders over to him and whispers, "It's cool Jazz just play along ok, improvise, ah need ta get rid of a pest!" she flickers an optic at him as if to wink and he nods, still not really understanding what is going on but plays along for the pit of it anyhow.

Heatwave has walked over, he is trying to keep his temper down at this new development. He is an arrogant, overbearing, over achiever but has a sense of decency and courtesy.

He puts his left hand out for a handshake.

Jazz had been standing there with his arm around Sound Track's shoulder plates.

"So you are my replacement?" He was looking at Jazz as if to scrutinise the truth of his former love's claim.

"I suppose I am!" replies Jazz recoiling his hand from the strong handshake. Heatwave walks off and leaves the room, and Jazz shakes his hand from it being sore.

Sound Track turns and looks at Jazz, "Thanks ya'll for saving me from that!" She motions to Heatwaves direction, "He's such a stick in tha' tailpahpe that I can't stand to be near him any more."

She stands with her hands on her hips facing Jazz, "Guess ah'll just have ta pay ya back for tha help whenever you need me too eh?" She says playfully as she attempts to walk out of the hangar.

Ella calls over to her, "Sonny, Don't you have some reports to write out right now?"

The femme stops and her shoulders droop, "Damn, ah'd forgotten 'bout that! Oh well, music studio for me then, helps me ta wrahte mah reports!"

Jazz had taken the whole episode in his stride and thought the antics were somewhat amusing, until Sound Track grabbed him and wouldn't let go.

"Hey sweet, what's goin' on?" He asks curiously.

"Ok, maestro, lets go jam!" He was going to fight against her holding him but spied a thumbs up from Ella and stopped, figuring it was safer to help write some of his own reports while he was at it too.

They leave the room, and Ella comments amusingly, "Poor Jazz!" She turns to the rest of the visiting Autobots and comments, "Ok you guys stay and wander for as long as you need to or want to until Jazz is done helping Sound track with her reports."

There comes a few snickers from some gathered until they all break off into smaller groups and dissolve into the base below.

*

Sometime later in the rec room.

Jazz has rejoined the others, including several of the Roughnecks members, other mechs, and other members of his own team, Hot Rod, Cliffjumper and Bumblebee.

Vanguard and Sunstar were in for rehabilitation. Though while Sunstar was in the medical bay being treated for psychological trauma, Vanguard was allowed to wander around the base for short periods of time.

Sunstreaker was somewhere on the base.

Blaster was in surgery again, being repaired by the on base medic Heartia, and helped by her step daughter Gaile. He had been having troubles with his new Earth style news van alt mode.

Kup had remained behind on Nebulon and Bluestreak had come in his place, badly injured, as he was also in for repairs in the medical bay along with some others.

Sideswipe and Burnout where nowhere around.

Cliffjumper asks Jazz directly, "Well we've all heard about Sideswipe's sordid affairs with his new girlfriend," A few of them laughed, "Is there anything you'd like to tell us fearless leader, about your adventures with your blue femme?" He grins.

Jazz has an amused yet innocent expression on his faceplate, "Nothin' doin' little red buddy!" He says, "She jus' lemme sit down an' listen t'some music while we both did our battle reports. She's got a real sweet sound system that she said she'd built herself, ya really should go an' listen to it sometime."

"If I didn't know better Jazz, I'd say you're a bit sweet on her!" jokes Cliffjumper.

This makes Jazz laugh out loud and the others also join in.

Vanguard who was sitting close by with Prowl, comments, "Feel grateful Jazz, I'd like to think it's the other way around. For her to let anyone into her room to see what you did is a privilege." Vanguard hadn't quite recovered from her injuries and was still tender and finding it hard to speak.

"Why do you say that?" Says Bumblebee.

"Well she may seem friendly and has a twin sister but really she prefers to be alone. Very private, very solitary. She's only nice to the ones she likes, and icy to the ones she doesn't, as you saw earlier!" Vanguard takes a moment to coalesce her thoughts then she gets up and has Peter escort her back to the medical bay.

Peter glances at the table where his team is and looks at them, hoping they keep quiet about their identities and then leaves.

While Jazz and some of the others hear a commotion from the training area and go to watch whoever is practising their fighting skills.

*

Elsewhere on the base, three visitors have arrived to see their friends, namely, Tracks, Mirage and Hound.

They had arrived amongst the midst of other mechs, who living in secret around the country, quite often frequented the base, for social meetings, upgrades, fuel, repairs, or just plain relaxing.

The three were surprised at the amount of mechs they had come across here and were wondering not only who everybody was but whether they would find their friends amongst them. This place was like the Grand Central Station for mechanoids today and it reminded them of home.

They had caught sight of Ella's familiar face, coming down a hallway near the rec room in the entrance hall. She had three other mechs with her, Freestyle, they had met before, but the others were new to them, another female and male.

Ella spots them standing by themselves and comments, "If you Cybertronians keep coming here unexpected, then I'm going to have to have to make you permanent residents!"

Mirage had noticed the gorgeous appearance of the female. He tried to not let it show but couldn't help himself, "So uh, where can we sign up!" He says jokingly.

Tracks and Hound notice why he said what he did and burst out laughing, as does Ella. Freestyle notices too and introduces the other two.

"This is Skyliner and Rocket." Introducing the male first, then the female. "He's my paternal unit, and she's his sister, my aunt."

Flashdance who had been not too far away adds, "And they're mah older brother and sister, be nice to 'em ya'll!"

Flashdance is talking to Rocket in French and asks her to accompany her to the art centre, where Flashdance does most of her work. Rocket politely nods to them and walks off with her younger sister to their destination.

Mirage gets left behind watching Rocket walk off, as his friends and the others go into the rec room.

*

Alone in his apartments Starscream had inadvertently uncovered an unwelcome guest in the base and taken that guest into his quarters quickly and privately.

"What are you doing here?" He demands.

'_I do not think that is any of your concern.'_ The guest comments flatly. It was using a private Decepticon communications channel as it could not speak out loud.

"I think it is every bit my concern, especially when a guest drops in unannounced!" Starscream smirks. "Now I will ask you again, what are you doing here?"

Ravage did not feel the need to be worried. Even though he did not think of Starscream as a threat, he had inadvertently dropped his guard when getting out of the freighter and had been seen by accident.

He had allowed the mech to get too close and had been discovered, to capture him and drag him into his quarters. The mech had use of his null ray and had used it on the Panther to subdue him. He had gone offline in this secret base's hangar only to wake up in this room, _'Wherever this room was?'_ Thought the cat.

"I am still waiting for an explanation Ravage?" demands Starscream again.

The cat just sighs and sits down on the floor to wait for an opportunity to escape, _'You are no longer in a position to demand anything of any Decepticon Starscream, least of all myself. I do not have to answer any of your demands or questions.'_

Starscream sneers at the cat, "Well in that case, I'm leaving!" He goes to leave his quarters, leaving the cat captive in his room. "I hope you have fun being stuck in here."

After Starscream had left, three animecha had entered the room. A canine called Watchdog, a Panther like Ravage, called Shadow, and a Sabre toothed cat called Cutthroat. Starscream had pushed an alarm button before leaving his quarters and whoever was on security monitor detail had posted these animals near his room in case he would cause any trouble.

Ravage did not even have time to defend himself before they attacked and withheld him.

Starscream had known they would be close by and just left Ravage to his own devices as the cat refused to talk to him and reveal any plans. On any given day, he would've torn the animal to metal shreds for not answering him, but as usual, the impulse to do so left a soon as it arrived.

He was held up in the hallway by Freefall who wanted to know what was going on, having seen the mech cat being held down by the three other animecha in the entrance to his quarters. He explained he had seen the cat alight from the freighter and had captured him, attempting to question him, but to no avail, then calling in security to deal with an intruder.

Freefall was somewhat surprised that Starscream would do anything like this. And in turn Starscream had surprised himself by trying to make himself look good in front of Freefall. It had her confused now, but she turned her attention to the matter at hand and picked up the offline cat and moved it to a more secure location, thanking Starscream for his involvement.

After she had walked out of sight with the animecha, he mulled to himself, "What in the pits am I doing?" He rubbed his head case, "Me? Starscream, being partial to a femme, how disgraceful!" And he storms off to the exercise area to work off some of his anger and disgust with himself, and his burgeoning feelings for his caretaker.

*

In the gym, Sound Track had decided to help Sunstar with her rehabilitation by blowing off some steam for a practice fight session in the arena.

Most of Jazz's team and the visiting mechanoids and also Freestyle and Burnout were watching from the seated area.

Bluestreak had just joined them, having had his repairs finished, but he was still pretty tender.

Sunstreaker is rather bored at having to join the others and do some training before they head back to Autobot City, but waits nonetheless for it to all be over, taking some interest when Sunstar comes out to practice. He does find something to complain about though, "I don't see why I have to sit here and watch these two in their humanoid forms fight?"

"Just wait till they bring out the big guns, 'Streaker." Replies Freestyle.

"The name is _Sun_streaker." He replies dryly

"They've got guns in here?" asks Cliffjumper.

Whereas Burnout starts to laugh.

Tempest who had been sitting close by admiring the chrome on her body comments, without taking her optics of the mirrored compact in her hands, "They are just warming up and when they're done, will start with their power streaming practice."

"They are very methodical and predictable with their training." States Ranger.

Freestyle adds, "But still fun to watch, coz they're not fighting us!"

"Speak for yourself you little runt!" scoffs Tempest, always eager to sneer at someone who she thought was less attractive than herself.

Starscream has just come into the area, but he sits atop the balcony overhanging the arena and watches from an annex above the rec room.

He sits and watches with Octane and Switchblade from this area, watching Sunstar and Sound Track with their power streaming. He wonders to himself how he can make his own rumoured ability work. He had progressed ahead with some of his own training, discovering his own ability to wield it but he had not yet acquired the power level he found satisfactory.

Around the room both of the female mechs are putting up a good practice display for the watchers and are getting a lot of whooping and hollering for it.

Both of them are accomplished fighters and neither are giving an inch to the other, even though Sonny had been told by Heartia to take it easy on Stella due to her recovery. But Stella was having none of it. She had been taken off active duty due to what happened to her on Nebulon. The fact she couldn't attend to medical duties or general work annoyed her, it made her feel inadequate and she wanted to prove she was still functional for normal duties.

Stella narrowly misses several streamed shots of ice like energy projected from Sonny's hands. She gets up quickly and charges her own power grid. She starts to glow while rising slightly off the ground and throws her arms back to finish her power charge, and then charges her hands to project an intense blast of solar energy from her hands directed at her maternal unit.

In the stands, the others bar the members amongst the Roughnecks are looking on astounded.

They had seen this power streaming ability displayed in part before but it still amazed them that transformers were even capable of this sort of firepower.

Joyride, who had finished her paperwork, and had her vocaliser repaired came and joined them. She commented on their stares. "Dis bein' why dis tech only bein' allowed for us 'ere on de base." The others who hadn't seen her come in turned around somewhat startled at her sudden appearance.

Jazz asks, "So your sayin' any transformer can be outfitted with that tech or learn ta fight like that?"

"Nae jus' anbody, ladd!" Replies Burnout who was obviously in an inebriated state from consuming too much fuel chemicals. She tries to get up to talk to Joyride but still unsteady, ends up crashing back down almost landing on Sideswipe.

Joyride however has to dodge a stray blast and ends up getting Bluestreak coming to her rescue, grabbing her, and getting them both out of the way in time.

Cliffjumper has a little laugh, "Looks like Blue's saving damsels in distress now!"

Bluestreak looks at him and the others who were laughing, and so he laughs a little too, "Anyone else would've done the same." He comments meekly as he lets the femme go.

*

Ella had since left the rec room and had returned to her office.

She had completed her own reports and was now waiting for Peter to return from putting his wife back in the medical bay.

She was also mulling over what to do with the Decepticon spy that had been caught that Freefall had reported to her. She knew who it was and who the black cat belonged to. She was also wondering if she should try and set a tap to ensnare the telepathic Decepticon Communications officer who owned him.

There was also the fact that her son Adam had started sending her files on young people in and around Port Angeles who would be suitable as pilots for the units he begun to build in his private underground facility that was now linked to Dragon Valley base from the north.

Just then Prowl enters in his mech mode and found himself a seat against the wall.

"Miss Drake?" He asks when she doesn't notice him straight away.

"Hmm sorry Peter, I was miles away. Seems we have lots of things to go over today."

"Does any of it involve Jazz and his team?" he asks.

"Perhaps!" She answers amused. She opens a comms link to the base and commences her statement, _'All team leaders to my office for matters of discussion, and that means you too Jazz.'_

All the leaders stop what they are doing where they are and immediately proceed to Ella's office, though Jazz is wondering why he was included as he is not a team leader under Ella's control. He asked one of the others but they just shrugged and he figured he'd just have to wait and see.

*

In between Joyride taking the Autobots to engineering to show them the technology they used, Burnout's maternal unit Frostbite, another member of the Spyhunters group, shows up. She was on the base with the rest of her team and Burnout was trying to ignore her completely.

Burnout knew that Ella would have told her mother she was around. It was not that Burnout didn't like her family, it was because her family was full of over achievers and she didn't like being measured up against them. The life she had made for herself would have been seen as less than perfect for most of them and she was just fine with her life the way it was. She didn't want her life criticised by any one of them.

Frostbite had finally cornered her and Sideswipe as they tried to sneak off at Burnouts behest, and she dragged her off for a scolding someplace private.

The rest followed Joyride into engineering after watching the scene being played out between mother and daughter before they disappeared somewhere else.

Sideswipe was left alone. He shrugged his shoulder plates at some curious glances and ended up following the others inside to see what Joyride was going to show them.

That group consisted of Hound, Hot Rod, Sideswipe, Bumblebee, Jazz, and Mirage.

Sunstreaker had remained behind in the arena. The rest had gone back upstairs to the bar after Sound Track had left.

When they had reached engineering however they didn't have a chance of seeing the technology yet, as they had spotted Blaster. Heartbeat, or Heartia as she was known to most was in her mech mode and running Blaster through some orientation tests.

As engineering was right next door to medical, she had him moved there to complete the work.

Some of his comrades commented to Heartia and her step daughter Gaile on a job well done. When he had initially been fixed on Nebulon it was for the basics to get him up and running again. But Ella had asked Optimus to bring him to Earth to finish the work that she wanted to do on him. But the person and the equipment for the job was on her base back home and so Blaster had come along back to Earth with Jazz and his team.

Henry Irons, Team Excelsior's Security Officer, was also in the engineering bay fixing some weapons had a snicker to himself at their presence. He was fully aware that Peter had told the team not to reveal themselves unless Ella wanted it so.

He didn't know how much longer he could take not being able to stand with his old comrades, some of them his friends. None of the others had yet to notice him standing close by. He supposed for now, he would have to deal with the fact that Jazz was the only one who knew who he really was.

Blaster still had pretty much the same colour scheme he had before. Heartia had made sure he was still recognizable as himself. But now he was a news van. His cassettes were no longer cassettes necessarily. His two humanoids mechs, Eject and Rewind now had the ability to utilise Biomodes if they so wished. And the animals could just travel free if they wished inside his vehicle mode. He also had three new partners, Lionheart, a tawny coloured Lioness; Moonrise, a female white wolf; Lockpick, a bronze coloured Raptor; Talkback, a curious and very chatty Macaw Parrot; and lastly Eagleview, a bald eagle; all had been a gift to Blaster from Flashdance to help with his new alt mode and his work.

"He was damned lucky none of those mechs of his were inside him when that lot ripped him open!" exclaimed Heartia, wiping her hands free of oil and other chemicals motioning to Blasters mech's who were busy giving their boss a warm welcome back, as well as welcoming the new partners.

*


	27. Chapter 27 Prisoners On The Base

*Prisoners On The Base*

*

Inside Ella's office, the team leaders had arrived and were listening to what Ella was telling them.

Jazz was still confused and had asked why he'd been called in also.

"Well that's simple Jazz!" Mused Ella, "I have a project that I'd like some friends of yours to work on. I have the funds and the means to restore something of value to the Autobots, the Ark namely, and I would like to help make that a distinct possibility if you are willing to go ahead with it."

Jazz doesn't smile, "But we pretty much took everythin' outta there after the Deceps' gutted the place durin' our last fight that totalled our old home?" Ella listens to Jazz but motions to Prowl to do what was needed. The mech presses a button under his wrist. Jazz noticed the slight movements but made no mention of it, instead he continues, "You sure you got the goods to help us rebuild it, 'cause it'll take ya a lot longer if ya don't have or know the blueprints o'that place?"

At that moment, six other individuals entered the room. One amongst them, in a voice very familiar to Jazz, states, "Of course we have the blueprints of the Ark, what do you take us for, idiots?"

"Huh?" stammers Jazz confused. He looks down at the stout human thinking he is hearing things, then asks, "Ratch', 'sat you in there? Please say yes 'cause if it ain't you then I'm definitely hearin' things?"

The Human retains his sullen look then says, "No, you're just hearing things I'm afraid." When Jazz's face looks disheartened, some of the others start giggling and Jazz cottons onto the joke. Raymond smiles, "Of course it's me you slagging can of happiness on wheels!" Jazz shrinks down to his Pretender shell and human size and hugs Ratchet. "Okay, okay, that's enough. Let me down, slag it!" He pushes Jazz's human form off and starts laughing.

"Good ol' Ratch!" Jazz muses, "So who else we got here?" He asks.

Prowl changes to his Biomode and introduces them all in turn. William Chase is Windcharger; Bryan Rawson is Brawn; Jackson Wheeler is Wheeljack and Julio Fernandez is Huffer. He leaves Henry for last as Jazz already knows who he is. Each one of them suffering a tight hug and handshake from Jazz who is way beyond happy to see them all again.

"I didn't think he was going to be that ecstatic! You could have warned us you know!" Bryan laughs as he comments to Ella.

Ella comments, "I thought it was about time to reintroduce you all to your old friends. While they are here for now, feel free to go introduce yourselves to them downstairs. I am sure Jazz would be only too happy to take you down and say hello."

As Jazz happily escorts them out with Peter in tow, he whistles 'Hi Ho' from Snow White.

Peter murmurs to his old friend, "You know one of these days you will have to tell me how you learnt to do that?"

"No can do Prowler, it's a trade secret!"

Peter sighs and thinks, _'Why did I even bother asking!'_ And lets it be.

Back inside the office.

"You wished to speak with us Ella?" Asks a curious Bonecrusher.

"Yes we have a matter of importance to discuss." She replies.

She spends the next five minutes to explain what she wanted them for. "I know this will be hard for you to accept and not take action over, but in regards to recent events, we will have to allow Decellion to gather the Matrices for us for the time being."

"Vhat?" Questions Freefall.

"But that's crazy ya'll?" Sound Track is outspoken as one of the Matrices Ella speaks of is her own, "Ya'll'r jus' gonna let that nutso bitch get all that power?"

"No I will not." Ella looks at them sternly, "You all know very well I would never allow such a thing unless it were necessary. It is all part of the plan for now. Anyway she cannot use the devices without the key. You all are the gatekeepers, but I am the key keeper, without me she cannot open the power flow of all 12 of the devices including her own. Her problem is her ego in mistakenly thinking she is the key keeper and not me." She pauses a moment to reflect and looks at them all in turn. "Bonecrusher, Freefall, you must watch out for yourselves as she will eventually come after you both, as well as Optimus, and that means she will return to Cybertron and eventually come here to Earth and then come looking for me. As far as she is concerned right now, I am just another gatekeeper to a Power Matrice. Freefall I want you to remain here on standby, and Bonecrusher I want you to gather up your team and set off for Cybertron, alright?"

The female T rex snorts, she doesn't like being away from Earth and Ella knows it. But Bonecrusher knows her work is necessary. "This means that we are to be leaving immediately I take it. My team will not be happy. I have not been home here on Earth for a rather long time and was looking forward to some down time."

"Yes Bonecrusher it would, but…" Ella pauses a moment, "But seeing as how you and your team do deserve some time off for your efforts, I will keep you here in reserve till you are needed, deal?" Bonecrusher smiles as best she can in her T rex mode and then turns to leave and contact her team who were out and around on the base. Ella begins to shuffle the rest out but asks Freefall back. "Oh and Freefall?"

"Da comrede?" She answers back.

"Take care of that cat. Do whatever you think is necessary to draw his master in for capture. I would like to know what kind of information the enemy has on us right now."

"Of course comrede." Freefall smiles as she leaves.

*

In the arena, Sound Track had returned to training there after the discussion with Ella, to find her daughter, in her Biomode, still going over her moves. But she wasn't alone.

Sunstreaker was looking on, for some reason; he was keeping his optics on her. Sound Track had to admit to herself that she couldn't keep Stella locked up from mechs for the rest of her life, so she would just take a step back and see where Sunstreaker would intend on taking his interest with her daughter.

Starscream had finally gotten some time to himself at the other end and was working on getting some of this supposed power streaming ability of his online.

He felt as if he were trying in vain. But during the last breem however he felt he could finally get something together. A violet like energy had started to smoke from his hands, but the more he tried to get any energy from it, the less it would coalesce into an energy form. When it finally did coalesce, something else happened.

He suddenly clutched his head in pain, seeing images of various kinds going so quickly through his cerebral processors that he couldn't see them clearly enough to discern what they were.

Stella was at the other end of the gym and rushes over to try and help, as is her instinct as a medic. She stops herself as Starscream stops clutching his head and she sees that his eyes are glowing a light indigo colour and his body, especially his hands, are starting to smoke, then he collapses.

Stella remembers back to when she first started to learn power streaming in her Biomode with her maternal unit and sees that it is a very similar affect to what Starscream is now going through now.

She reaches down to look at his hands from where the most smoke was coming emanating and she sees the problem. She was one of the medics who had helped refit him when he had first come in and now she recognized the techno organic circuitry of the materials Ella had injected into his system.

She looked from his hands, up his arms to where his weapons systems were and also up to his neck and part of the circuitry was over his head casing.

He was still twitching slightly and groaning and pain but Stella still did not touch him. As her instincts had told her not to.

Sound Track and Sunstreaker walk up. "What's wrong with him?" Asks the yellow Autobot.

Stella looks up to him for a moment then returns her attention to Starscream. "Ella must have programmed the nanotech material to activate and alter some of his systems when he reached a certain point in his training."

Sound Track replies, "Musta been when he fahnally got a power stream up ya'll."

Stella nods and then walks over to the nearest intercom on the wall and contacts the base's head medic Heartia, who makes her way from the tech centre where she was earlier.

Ella had also come into the gym area in response to the intercom call. When she saw what was going on, she just sighs and goes over to the group to help out.

Ella places Starscream on a bench near her and looks him over.

By that time Heartia had come in, looked at Ella, and seeing what was going on, got her medical devices out, "So what kind of lovely abilities did you give him?" Questions the medic, knowing full well what Ella could be capable of.

Ella smiles at her old friend, "Guess we'll just have to wait and see!"

Heartia purses her lips as she glares at Ella, then she picks up the unconscious Starscream and carries him off to the medical ward, "Fine then, we will see what he comes up with!" With that she leaves the room, leaving the others behind.

*

This year was going to be very different for the Port Angeles High School students.

Adam had put forward a program to his mother in order for her to help him select students for a secret program he wanted to instigate. He had deliberately manipulated some strings to get certain families and their children here to Port Angeles so that they could attend the school. However his idea, although not entirely, had been discovered by his rival from another business and he was being watched, and they too put some of their own students there to spy on him.

His idea had to do with a secret project they were undertaking called Project Messiah. Adam was one in charge of the whole thing, and members of Team Excelsior had been helping with all the base frames for the mecha combat units. While they had been working on the Military units and working out the bugs, they had also been working on the other prototypes. None were operational yet as they had no pilots, but these ones were more streamlined and closer in design to Transformers than the mecha they had made for the military.

All Adam had done was to take Deltronian E Type battle mecha units and adapt them for use by humans, but no one knew that except him and the Team, as well as a select few others.

But he still needed his own pilots.

Most everyone else in the military thought they were made from scratch.

Adam had intended on using a pre-established educational facility with a variety of subjects offered to train pilots for these mechs, and Port Angeles University was selected as the prime candidate for that purpose. He built a secret facility under the campus, and when the time came, he would reveal those areas to the selected youths who would attend the college and be involved in the training program.

But for now he wanted to include some specific students from the local high school to test out his training program before setting up the university program. He would not introduce the students to the technology he was working on but he would induct them into a special group of candidates which would test whether his program would work.

If it did work then these tech savvy students could then be placed in his University program with advanced standings when everything was ready to go.

Being that he had met one or two students he had ideas for, he thought that Ella's friends who worked undercover at the local High School would be perfect to help him draw up the group and enlist the aid of certain students he was after.

One student in particular he wanted to enlist was young Laura Banks, whom he knew would help. She would be very helpful to head the group.

*

Jazz had walked downstairs with the others down to the rec room. He'd been told by Cliffjumper on his comms that they'd all gone back to sit in the rec room to talk with Blaster.

When Jazz had arrived and had gotten everyone's attention so he could introduce their old friends, there were some mixed reactions.

Some questioned it, some didn't. But their being convinced was due to Bluestreak, who brought up Prowl's coming back to them oh so suddenly on Cybertron that won them over finally.

And there was a clamour of greetings from everyone.

Some even asked as to why they weren't like Prowl. But Peter wasn't the first to go through the conversion, they found out. Wheeljack was the one who had been through it before Peter. The other five were still in their relative human and/or cybernetic forms but had some memories. Those others hadn't made the change yet.

Not that it mattered to them, they were just glad to have their friends returned to them again. And were quite enjoying the surprises that had come since becoming associated with Ella and the mecha on this base.

*

Upon returning to Charr, Decellion and Galvetron had set their scientists, on loan to them from the Dominion, onto studying the Power Matrices in their possession.

They wanted to uncover a way to use their power and they wanted to know now.

For almost a cycle the scientists worked to study the devices to no avail. But this didn't help them at all. Galvetron was not pleased.

Decellion had figured it may not be possible and conveyed her concerns to Galvetron. "Perhaps we should wait till we have all 12 of them. I do remember something vaguely from before when I gathered them in the past that they will not work until they are all together."

The scientists were all still standing idly by waiting to be dismissed. "Get out of my sight you miserable failures!" Yells Galvetron.

Decellion watched them all scurry to get out of the room lest they become targets for Galvetron's Cannon. "Shall we put them somewhere until we have all 12 devices?"

Galvetron didn't trust all his soldiers, and was sure one might get an idea for a power play and try and use one of the devices against him, and so agreed to Decellion locking the devices away for safe keeping.

What he didn't know was that she wanted to lock them away and keep them for herself in a safe area that only she could get to.

Cyclonus, who was close by, is more than jealous at the place Decellion now occupied by his master's side. His rightful place as he saw it, but he tolerated his back seat position for his master's sake so nothing would happen to him for now.

'_Perhaps,' _He thought to himself, _'He will grow tired of her when he sees what she is really after.'_

He was no fool; he could see plainly what it was that Decellion was after. But with Galvetron in his current state of mind he knew his pleas to see reason and get rid of her would only fall on deaf audio sensors. So for now he would just have to contend with watching her every move when she was away from Galvetron's side.

*

It had been almost a week now since the Autobots had returned to their duties at Autobot City.

Their old friend Spike was settling in, as was his wife and son.

He also had the opportunity to get in contact with his younger brother Buster. He had discovered that Buster happened to be a member of the EDC, and inadvertently a member of the team under the command of one Melissa Fairborn.

And after they had made contact, he had made the trip to San Francisco to see him and catch up on old times.

*

At Dragon Valley base, amidst the sudden incoming of military supplies into the base for Adam's project, Ella had started to train Starscream in the use of his new found skills.

After he had awoken, he had begun to discover, that to a degree he could read parts of the thoughts of others, but only the thoughts pertaining to their greatest pleasures but also their greatest fears. He had indeed smirked to himself when he had realised it, but he knew so long as he was under Ella's influence he would not have the chance to unleash this new ability on anyone and use it the way he wanted to. As the collar he was wearing was inhibiting a certain level of his power.

He had tried several times to use his powers on Ella but she had only raised a brow at him. For some reason she was immune to his abilities, as was Hot Rod who had begun to hang around the base more.

During the week Ella had also been training him too, showing him how to use his own burgeoning powers. It was their closeness and developing affection for each other that was making him ill. Though he was one to talk, he had started to develop an attachment to Freefall. Especially when she had let him have free reign in a mission he had been asked to come along on to capture Soundwave.

The Decepticon had come to Earth after the ships to continue to spy on Ella and her group to gain information for Galvetron. But he had lost contact with Ravage. When he had gotten closer to the base to try and find a way in, he found he could not mentally hijack the mind of some mech to gain entry.

Like Starscream, he was caught like an animal in the forest surrounding the base. It had been Freefall that had been blocking his signal along with her telepathic assassin, Carrion. He was caught off guard, knocked offline, then dragged into the base and imprisoned and kept away from his precious cassettes.

Down in the prison bay today was where Starscream found himself wandering, looking at his former comrades in arms. He was in his Biomode and was being glared at by the humanoid cassettes, Rumble and Frenzy, who did not know who he was as yet.

"What are ya gawkin' at meatbag? This ain't no peepshow. Slag off!" Snarls Frenzy.

"On the contrary," Starscream muses himself with the astounded looks on their faceplates, "I think it is a peepshow!"

"Screamer? Damn you got ugly." Says Rumble.

Starscream's expression went from amusing glee to contemptuous disgust.

"What do you mean, got ugly?" Jokes the purple and silver twin, "He was already ugly before!" And both of them broke out on fits of laughter.

Several animecha had begun to wander around the hallway in the prison area as they had come in with another.

"I do not think you ere being in position to meke jokes." The tall dragon-like femme states dryly, "End you," She looks down at Starscreams Biomode, "Ere not meking situation eny better."

Starscream returns to his normal robot mode and stands next to her, glaring at her optics directly as if to challenge her, "And would you prefer I be in there with them perhaps?" He asks.

"Thet cen be errenged comrede!" She smirks, knowing full well Starscream is only trying to rile her up and try to get under her armour. One part of her doesn't like him doing it but she would prefer he did. She didn't like anything getting boring, especially when it was her own troops that gave her trouble. And right now she was revelling in it appropriately.

Starscream backs down for a moment, but that moment is all it takes for her to wander out of the hallway again and back to her office at the other end to keep an optic on the prisoners.

Looking up towards her office, Starscream noticed that Freefall had Bombshell and Carrion guarding the only entrance to and from this area of the base. He also noticed that two of his other team mates had waltzed in, but in their Biomodes. It was Thundercracker and Skywarp.

"Now here's somethin' interestin'?" Muses the dark haired human. "Good to see those two little punks behind energon bars where they belong!"

"Oh great now I'm hearin' another dead mech's vocals!" Grumbles Frenzy, "Is this place a graveyard or what?"

"I assure you that you are not hearing things Frenzy." States a calm voice coming from the tall human in a steel blue suit with the dark silver hair.

"Yeah bro' I'm hearin' it with ya? Those two fleshbags sound like Skywarp and Thundercracker."

Skywarp leaned as far forwards as he could without getting shocked by the energon bars and said to them, "You two midgets got it in one!"

"You mean to tell me youse two are Thunderbutt and Skywimp!" Mused the red twin.

Thundercracker raised his brow at the name and silently mouthed the insult to himself.

But Skywarp wasn't having any of it. He promptly teleported into the cell where the two were chained up and gave them a stern warning. "You two get it into ya thick head cases that you're the prisoners here and that is where you two really belong, in a cage and being looked at like the animal bozos you both are." He clunks their heads together and laughs as the collapse to the floor.

Even though Soundwave was listening to the entire conversation in the cell opposite the two smaller mechs, he wasn't showing any ounce of emotion on his features right now, but that wasn't to say he wasn't furious over what Skywarp had just said and done.

When Skywarp had finished his tirade, he teleported back out of the cell and started walking out of the prison bay, "Come on TC, let's go cruisin'. This prison block just isn't good enough for the likes of us."

He was already near the exit when Thundercracker had started moving, after spending a short while looking around at all his former comrades.

Starscream ended up walking off in a huff after the boring events and went to find something else to do around the base to keep himself amused for the day.

*

Hot Rod had become quite accustomed to using his new abilities now. He congratulated Ella on being a good teacher. He felt like he had finally gotten a few glitches out of his system he thought had crept in due to his new form.

Ella though, while being fond of the young mech was slightly worried about her developing feelings for him getting in the way of their working together. She knew he had a greater future ahead of him than what he knew about now.

She wasn't sure whether her deceased Husband Rodine, was still watching over him or not, or whether Rodine was sharing his precognitive abilities with him either.

She knew something was coming for her and she didn't want any of these feelings for him to get in the way of what she needed to do. She did not want him or any of her other friends to grieve over what she knew she was going to have to do.

But she just watched on as Hot Rod continued to keep her company and smile when he wanted her attention during the self imposed training he was giving himself.

She also thought about the Biomode process that several of the mecha residing on the base had along with their transformational abilities. Before leaving to go home, the process had been discussed with the Autobots, and several of them had expressed interest in having it done including Bumblebee and Jazz who were quite curious as to how their Pretender shells could be upgraded with Ella's technology.

Ella also had her hands full with her son's Project Messiah and the construction of the mecha he wanted help with. Originally Adam had arranged for Team Excelsior to help him but had let them go when Ella had told him the other Autobots knew about them now, and so he decided to do most of the work himself when he was able to.

Then there was Vanguard. She was having some problems with her power grid, it had started to change and evolve as a result of her recent injuries. Even though her mecha form was healing, it was changing and was causing her some trouble.

Though at the moment, when Vanguard was wandering on the base, some of the others avoided her due to her now unpredictable electrical discharges that could come at any time. So she had begun to seek out Heartia, who was watching her in case of trouble.

Ella thought, _'Perhaps she is beginning her power ascension like Sound Track and some of the others once started! Her new and higher power levels certainly are beginning to reflect that, as is Sunstar's and Starscream's.'_ Elle let the notion go for now and returned her attention to Hot Rod training in front of her.

*

Within the Alliance, the enlisted soldiers were on constant call. The attacks on the border planets between the Alliance and the Dominion had heightened as had some sightings of Decellion's Necromancer's well inside the outer rim areas of the Alliance.

Any and all available soldiers had been put on high alert. The Council at Alpha Prime however had gotten in contact with Ella and requested the assistance of Bonecrusher and her team and had asked that they be made available to travel to the nearest Alliance military post immediately.

The Dinosaurers were actually enjoying their little holiday on Earth for the time being, many of them, although having Earth type Dinosaur modes, had never even been to Earth or had even seen a biological planet but felt a kinship to the planet.

They weren't happy with the redirection to the Alliance as they were expecting a call for them to be sent to Cybertron, but they respectfully followed orders and packed up with all their gear and left when they were ready to go.

They also asked for Freefall and her team, which Ella of course refused to let Freefall go. Instead, with Freefall's consent, let Nightfall go as team leader and the rest of the team along with him on call to Alpha Prime.

The council had decided to leave Ella's Roughnecks team where they were in case they were needed. They felt it wouldn't be too much longer before Decellion went back there and they needed a backup team just in case.

They were also aware of what both Bonecrusher and Freefall were carrying, having been told about what happened to Sound Track in Ella's reports, and they wanted to keep both the keepers artefacts somewhere where they would be relatively safe for the time being, and that was with Ella.

Bonecrusher accepted the fact she may lose her device and so she willingly handed it over to Ella before she left. The loss of her new power levels didn't bother her, either way she was a warrior and a fighter and had responsibilities and so took her team to the Alliance.

Freefall though, hesitated, and Ella understood why. Freefall had had her Power Matrice a very long time, the feeling was separation anxiety. It took her time to finally decide to hand it over and it made her revert back to the space jet mode she had chosen originally to disguise herself as a Transformer.

She knew it wouldn't make much difference as she had taught herself to survive with what she had long before she had even received the Matrice in the first place, so it made no difference to her at all after she gave up the artefact whether she had power or not, she did however still have her skills and she was fine with that.

Though with Freefall reverting back to her other self, she knew she may not have the strength physically to deal with Starscream so readily, who would notice the change straight away and take advantage of it the first chance he got.

*

Jazz had also gotten in contact with the Dinobots at Ella's request and had them report to Autobot City for a briefing.

These soldiers were notoriously hard to get in contact with and when they arrived they blasted Jazz for calling them without having a fight to attend to.

He persuaded them that Ella had something better in mind for them and that they would be travelling to her Dragon Valley base for a trip to the Alliance.

This piqued their interest straight away as they knew that the other times they had contact with Ella and her teams, there was definitely lots of fighting for them to get involved in and they agreed to go very quickly.

*

In the Delta system, there was another soldier, more specifically, an old soldier.  
She was a former member of the Alliance council, named Nova Duragano, Ella's biological mother. She was somewhat of a pirate now, but still the great military intelligence and strategist she had always been.

Recently she had taken her business up with the Alliance again and she had her rank reinstated to that of General as she had had previously.

The team that the Alliance had given her for combat control was in fact the Dinosaurers, Bonecrusher's team, as she had worked with them the most and knew how to get the most out of them.

About halfway to the Alliance borders of space was when Nova contacted her old friend Bones'.

Bonecrusher wasn't too surprised to hear what Nova had to say, but she was intrigued with the idea that they were going to go and find the Power Matrices before Decellion could get her hands on them.

Nova also discovered that Ella had sent along the Dinobots with Bones' team for extra muscle in case they needed it. Nova had heard of their reputation and was still thinking of a way to incorporate the Dinobots into her plan.

When they arrived to Nova's secret base on Delta Three, she went over the plan with the teams. Many were not happy with the fact that even though they had been called into battle, they would not be fighting.

But Nova explained it to them simply. If they were going to be going into territory where the Dominion would most certainly be interested in going to retrieve the Power Matrices, then it was a certainty that they would run into a fight.

This pleased the fight crazy members of the team. Nova figured that the only way she would be able to utilise the Dinosaurers as well as the Dinobots was to allow them to fight and let her grab the Matrices as they travelled around the place looking for them.

Bonecrusher knew this and thought it would be better that way, at least for her team. She had tried to convey the idea to Grimlock but he hadn't seemed interested in listening and so she let it go.

It allowed her time to think while all the rest of her team as well as the Dinobots were getting ready to leave Delta Three for their first expedition.

Long ago on Earth, 1 million cycles ago, they were the primary defence force. Twelve members with much the same alternate modes as their Autobot compatriots, the Dinobots.

They were called Earthquake, a Brontosaurus, and a medic; Whiplash, a Stegosaurus, a weapons-smith and spiritualist; Hand Glide, a Pterosaur, an aerial gunner; and last but not least, the Dinosaurers second in command, Headstrong, a Styracosaur, and a military tactician and weapons expert. These four were her prime team, but there were the later additions.

The 7 others now on the team, they included, a couple of Velociraptors, Rapture and Ripclaw, brother and sister, espionage/sabotage experts; Fleetfoot, a Gallimimus and an information courier; Slingshot, a Parasaur and a scientist; Ram Raid, a Pachycephelosaur and a scout; Spine back, an Spinosaurus and a gunner; and lastly, Spitfire, a Dilophosaur and a chemist.

They were all Deltronians bar Bones'. It was Nova who had Bonecrusher originally converted from a real Earth Tyrannosaurus Rex, so she was the only one on the team that stood out as unique.

For the last week, Earth time, Nova had been travelling with the Dinosaurers and Dinobots, searching out leads to the other Matrices and had come across some battles and skirmishes that kept the teams happy and focused.

Nova, like her daughter shared a similar gift of foresight and although she was more warlike, she dealt with it the same way, she made preparations for it, a reason why she personally requested the Dinosaurers for help from the council. The addition of the Dinobots by Ella was also a bonus and a quite useful one at that.

*

On Earth Prowl had been given a job to do by Ella, along with his group and his subsequent new team members.

He was joined at the old Autobot base by his six other former Autobot compatriots, as well as by Armstrong and his team, Team Excelsior.

Armstrong's old military team had been brought together again to help with the job. Amongst the team were planners, engineers and builders that would be a great help to Prowl for the reconstruction of the Ark.

Armstrong's team consisted of six other members, including; Amphibian, a tactical espionage expert and marine explorer with a amphibious truck as an alt mode; Chainsaw, a Lumberjack and a former weapons expert with his small partner Bobcat; Death Trap, a paranormal military officer and spiritualistic telepath who had his daughter Ecto along with him here on Earth; Jackhammer, a femme and a former military construction engineer, also Skyliner's aunt; Goldmine, a miner, and also a Geologist and demolitions expert, Landslide and Rockslide's father and Ranger's former partner; and Impulse, their medical officer.

Armstrong himself had once been a soldier on Cybertron in the Autobot army but on one occaision was ambushed and had his whole team at that time terminated by Decepticons on an alien planet. He was also thought dead by the same Decepticon soldiers but somehow through sheer will stayed alive, even though he suffered from amnesia through that attack.

When he was up and about again he went and joined the Deltronian military as that was the system he was taken to. But even though he got parts of his memory back during his training and eventual graduation from the Deltronian Military, he never went back to Cybertron, opting instead to stay in the Delta system.

Of Optimus Prime's soldiers, Peter, AKA Prowl as well as Ironhide and Kup had recognised him as a long thought dead soldier from the time on Sentinel Prime and welcomed him heartily.

Sound Track's older brother Skyliner and a femme cargo ship with a black C-17 Globemaster alt mode, called Steelwind, also agreed to help transport supplies to and from Dragon Mountain to aid in the construction.

*


	28. Chapter 28 The Work Begins

*The Work Begins*

*****

It was dawn about a week later when Prowl and his team of Autobots along with Armstrong and his team came to the Ark.

They had all been discussing the best place to start with the reconstruction.

During the week, Bryan, Raymond and Jackson had flown down to an area to the south east of Portland, Oregon, near Mt Hood. This was where they had abandoned the Ark and left it in the care of the human's who had a military base close by.

They had found it all in relatively good condition as the US military had extended their base to surround it and had kept out fans and others who would have otherwise come in and explored the Autobots old base or taken things from it, not that they would have gotten anything useful.

The Autobots had already gutted their old base of every scrap of material they thought was valuable and removed everything else that was still intact that the Decepticons couldn't get their digits on. Including their old computer Teletraan One.

The Old Computer had only been partially damaged in the explosion that had been rigged by Brawn and Ratchet to stop a Decepticon invasion of the base. Teletraan One was relocated into storage as a new system had already been built for them on Cybertron and transported to Earth for Autobot City. Teletraan One had been taken out of storage to reinstall back to its old point of duty here at the Ark for the reconstruction.

At the time of the destruction, they drove the enemy off but they found that the rest of the base was too badly damaged to even inhabit as a secondary base of operations anymore and so Rodimus, the leader at the time, moved all the Autobots to the already constructed second base at Autobot City.

It had been several hours for all of them going through the blueprints, but Prowl had managed to get them organised and Steelwind had been completely unloaded and sent back to Dragon Valley to bring back more supplies.

Adam had decided to take some time off from his own project to see how the humans and mech's were faring at rebuilding their old base.

"Getting everyone organised I see Peter?" asked Adam. Although Adam had been aware of Peter's true identity the whole time he had been human and was coming to terms with who he really was, he was also a friend and preferred to keep their interaction casual rather than formal.

"Yes, quite." Peter responded while looking over some parts of the blueprint copy he was holding and looking at the supplies he had piled around him. "It seems like a homecoming being here again though."

"I suppose being human after your last death at the Decepticon's hands has been good for you. You always had trouble expressing yourself emotionally before. But now, well…" Adam trailed off

Peter smiled, amused, "Yes it was a good thing. I'm a little less stiff, as it is usually put, and emotionless as I was before and Vanessa has helped greatly."

Adam laughed, "Well I guess being married to someone who, as a mecha used to date your best friend, what was his name, Jazz?" Peter nodded, "Must be a bit strange for you?"

Now Peter was laughing, "Yes Jazz thought so too and told me that first night we talked after my transition back to what I once was. But it's not as strange as Vanessa is herself. She is a dedicated officer but she's the strangest and most emotionally complex individual I've ever met, and I can understand fully now why she and Jazz used to be together. I thought it quite amusing though that before she went out with him, and she confided this in me, that she was interested in both of us but went with Jazz because he asked her out first!"

Peter stops momentarily. Now that he had his mecha capabilities back, he pretty much had most to all of his memories back also and remembered back to the days when he, Jazz and Vanguard used to hang out together, all the good and the bad times.

Adam speaks, "Well I'm going to go in and see how everything is going inside."

Peter calls out, "You had better watch out, when last I heard Ratchet and Brawn were arguing over something and Ray had begun to throw some of the supplies around."

Adam took note of what Peter had said and then soon realised what he was talking about.

Ray and Bryan were indeed arguing and poor Jackson was standing by the wayside with his tools installing Teletraan One on his own.

"Need a hand?" Asks Adam of Jackson.

"Sure, why not, you'd be a much better help than those two right now!" Jackson indicates to the other two who were just about to get into a full blown brawl until Henry walked in and stopped them both.

"Knock it off ya crazy jackasses and git back ta work already!" Henry yelled as he walked past carrying tonnes of equipment on his shoulders.

All Adam did was smile to himself and continued helping Jackson with the computer.

*

Also during that week there was a situation that led to the breakout of Dragon Valley Base's Decepticon prisoner Soundwave.

Ravage had managed to get out and surveyed parts of the base for his master, completely undetected.

It had been discovered that it was done during the time Ella had been away with some of her team elsewhere and so were not on the base to know what had gone on.

When she had returned from Britain with the those who had been with her, Ravage, Soundwave and all the rest of his minicons were gone, and a few had been injured trying to stop him leaving the base, and were now in medical recovering..

Ella had all the people concerned, who were supposed to be in duty monitoring the base in her office and she was questioning them, including some members of the Roughnecks who had stayed behind.

"So is someone going to tell me why of all times, when I was gone with the others and there was already a skeleton crew left here, you lot decided to have a party and leave your posts unattended and allow a Decepticon soldier to escape, possibly with vital information on this base that he will inevitably report to Galvetron?"

There were only a dozen of them involved in all of this, and even though Sound Track was in the room, she was watching them along with Ella but didn't say a word until was necessary.

The mecha involved all hung their heads and Ella responded, "I didn't think I would get a response." She turns to Sound Track and starts speaking, "You deal with the rest of the team, the others, are restricted to base until all the damage that was caused in Soundwave's breakout is cleared up and fixed."

Ella then leaves her own office shaking her head and goes out for drive to wash her hands of the situation, leaving Sound Track to deal with the remainder.

Sound Track is relaxed in her chair lounging, "Ok ya'll now where should tha punishment start?"

The ones who knew they were in deep trouble grimaced when Ella left them all, not just the Roughnecks members but also the individuals in Sound Track's care to the blue femmes punishment, as they knew she wouldn't be nice or lenient.

*

Upon returning to Charr, Soundwave relayed his escape story to Galvetron on the basic layout of Ella's base on Earth from the information he had received from Ravage.

Galvetron had of course not wasted any time in asking his faithful soldier what other information he had been able to gather while being incarcerated.

Soundwave also relayed visual and audio information of his own experiences on the base to his leader. The Commander did however grimace in disgust at visual images of two of his former soldiers whom he thought long dead in human forms, both Skywarp and Thundercracker, when Soundwave had revealed who they really were.

"These former soldiers of mine who now align themselves with our enemy and these disgusting little humans as well as wear their pathetic appearances are no longer worth my attention." He states to Soundwave. "If in the course of our battles, we come across them relay the order they are to be treated as traitors and shot on site. Report to Shockwave's location on the Dominion planet and ensure he follows the orders he has been given. I do not want any signs of betrayal rearing its ugly head. And considering his track record, he must be watched while he is watching them."

Galvetron gets up from his seat and wanders over to the window overlooking his new citadel on Chaar, facing away from Soundwave and the door out of his chambers.

"As you wish Lord Galvetron." Comes the monotonous voice of this mechanoid as he excuses himself, just as Decellion opens the door and walks in.

She of course had heard that Soundwave had returned, but at the time she had been called by Galvetron, she had been with the hidden Matrices and was trying to decipher a way to open them or at least draw any power out of them.

"Well?" Asks the tall purple mech without even turning in her direction.

"Nothing yet." She said disappointed.

Galvetron was annoyed that nothing had yet come of the Power Matrices and their usefulness as weapons to him, which was why he had agreed to leave the project to Decellion, unaware of her true intentions still with these devices. Although she also knew she was being watched by Scourge and Cyclonus and so had to watch her step and be careful with her plans.

She still needed to manoeuvre Galvetron to where she wanted him to be. Use him for the takeover of the Dominion and then do away with him and then continue her plans.

"And what about the Dominion?" He asked.

She had by then come up behind him and put her arms around him and showed some deftly placed affection he was enjoying. She was also well aware of his plans to take over the Dominion now. In a moment of distraction by her he had let slip his plans for the takeover and eventual integration of their armies into his own.

She however had not really reacted all that much to it initially and agreed to his idea. It had perplexed him at first as she was a long lived personage of their own empire whom he knew wanted all that power and control for herself. And so he had become suspicious finally of her loyalty, but he would deal with it when it became a problem he could no longer handle, for now she was very useful to him. Once he had the Dominion Army he could dispose of her and move on with his plans.

"Well, Galvetron. They are yet still unaware of your plans for takeover. It was a very good idea to send your servant Shockwave to them as an undercover agent to uncover secrets about them and relay all that information back to us!" She grinned at him coyly, trying to be submissive.

When Soundwave arrived on the Dominion planet under construction, he didn't seem at all too pleased at the appearance of a fellow Decepticon, if he was able to show any emotion at all that was, Shockwave knew at once Soundwave had been sent to spy on him and to ensure Galvetron's orders were followed.

But what Soundwave and also Galvetron didn't know was that the Dominion elders had already gotten to Shockwave, offering him unlimited scientific resources and room to experiment on whatever and whoever he wanted if he worked for them undercover while still appearing to work for Galvetron, so they could keep an eye on the Decepticon Commander and his other soldiers.

He had agreed as it was logical for him to have any and all available resources at his disposal for his work that he wanted to conduct, and the Dominion would let him do it without any inhibitions.

*

After hearing about some of the problems the three students were having at the local High School from other students, the Roughnecks members, Joyride and Flashdance had decided to come into the school after the day's classes and see what was really going on.

They had just finished doing the week of punishments their elder sister had given them and needed a time out from the base anyhow, so any excuse would've done.

Both had been good friends with Laura for some time, since the young female human was a child.

Laura knew as a child that it was Decepticons that had attacked the facility where her mother and Aunt Gaile had worked as scientists, wanting the cyberisation technology. The plan was engineered by Megatron and his soldiers nearly 15 years ago now for them to take the technology and make use of it however which way they could for their own battlefront against the Autobots.

Laura wasn't any closer to getting over the death of her mother which was so long ago, as she had loved her mother dearly, but she and her father did lean on each other heavily when times were bad for them both.

She herself had been saved by the intervention of three Autobots, Jazz, Sideswipe and her self confessed hero, Bumblebee. She had as much favour for him as her cousin did for Cliffjumper. Although she had not yet been able to thank them for saving her life all those years ago. She remained hopeful she would still be able to sometime, as she had yet to work up the gumption to get Bumblebee alone to ask about that day.

Today though she was sitting out on the lawns of the high school, studying with her friends when she spotted Joyride, in her Biomode sitting in the front seat of her elder sister's vehicle mode, pull up in the carpark.

Felicia exited her vehicle mode with her holographic avatar that had occupied the driver's seat and walked it over to where they were.

Ryan and Christine had their backs to Felicia and Casey's approach, so neither heard nor saw them until Felicia spoke.

It startled them to no end though.

"So ah hear ya'll 'r havin' troubles with tha local wahldlife!" Jokes Felicia.

Casey snickers at her sister's smart-mouthed comment.

Some of the problematic students in question were seated nearby and heard what Felicia had said.

One individual, a young adult male who had been one of the ones Felicia had let her animecha chase off before was there. "So you guys are that pathetic you can't even fight your own fight now, you have to bring in these old ladies to help you. I don't know what's more pathetic, you or them!" He laughs to himself, getting the attention of several of his friends who laughed along with him and gave him high fives for his insult.

His supposed friend, a fellow music student, was elbowing him and pointing to the two visitors, "Dude, that's like, CJ Rider and Flick' Danzig!"

He answers back "…And I would know who they are because?"

His friend talks again "But they're like the keyboardist and guitarists for that old band called Sound House back in the 70s and 80s. They're like rock and roll legends dude!"

This arrogant youth named Ian snaps back at the youth, "Who cares, they're old, they don't make music anymore, nobody knows who they are and nobody wants to know! I suppose you're going to ask for their autographs?"

The youth, annoyed by his treatment leaves Ian and the others and says, "Sure I will, no harm in it is there?" He walks over to Felicia and Casey and does exactly that, leaving Ian and his friends to complain and whine.

"So whaht's yoah name, kid?" Asks Felicia.

"Trevor." He says nervously, "Trevor James." Felicia and Casey smile at him and he smiles nervously back

"Ya don' be havin' good taste in frien's aroun' here ya know?" Says Casey.

Trevor nods agreeably, "I just realised that. He's not my friend anymore, not now. Besides I can always make new friends!" He smiles as he looks at the two musicians and the surrounding students with them. "So are you ladies friends with this group?" He asks.

Felicia smiles and then looks in Ian's direction, "Hey Mistah 'Ah got tha sun shinin' outta mah rear', Trevor's hangin' 'round with us now ya'll so don' go an' bothah him no more, 'kay!" Ian does nothing but scowl and turns around to talk to the rest of his so called clique, not even caring that Trevor has left their group.

Trevor decides he made a good choice to come and talk to the band members and asks the three others, "So you guys know the band members of Sound House, man! They were like my parents, fave' band of all time and raised me on it too. If it wasn't for the sweet sounds of the drummer then I never would have become a drummer myself."

Felicia and Casey chuckle to themselves, "Bet ya'll'd lahke ta meet Vanessa then?"

"Vanessa? You mean Vanessa Gordon?! Sure I would!" Trevor squeals.

Laura chuckled quietly to herself, "They're actually my friends, but anytime you want to talk to the band members, just let me know and I can arrange something ok." Laura winks at the two femmes and they wink back. She knew that they had other work now and couldn't afford to have that uncovered and made public just yet, as Laura would act as a go between for them and the younger fans just like she always did.

"Sweet!" Was the welcoming reply from Trevor, "Say could you talented ladies sign this for me too?" He said to Felicia and Casey as he took his guitar from around his neck and shoulders.

They gladly signed it for him. Even though Trevor had already explained the situation, Felicia wanted to know more about why Trevor was with the others' group. "So what are ya'll doin' wastin' ya time with a prick lahke that anyway?"

"I suppose its 'cause I don't know anyone else. I'm new here and I'm that laid back and non fussed that I just went with it but he was becoming rather annoying anyway. I'm glad ya came along when ya did; I didn't know how to get away from him and his group to be honest without getting a thumping from 'em!" Trevor replies.

Felicia comments, "Cool, now kid if ya'll want tha rest of tha band's signatures on that guitar o'yours, or your parents want somethin' sahgned, ask Laura an' we can arrange somethin' ok." Trevor nods and Felicia winks at him.

Seeing that the coast is fairly clear, Felicia lets her hologram fade out.

Casey slaps her forehead, Laura sighs, her two friends laugh and Trevor almost faints, "What the...?" was his response.

"Dammit, Flick we is s'posed ta bein' undercover!" Chides Joyride. Hopeful that no one else just saw her sister's audacious stunt, also hopeful that the group they were with, encircled by a glade of trees, blocked out most of the view from others around them.

Laura didn't know what else to do but just go with it after she saw the furious look on Casey's face, "Ah Trev'?" Laura pauses as they all see a red Porsche in the car park transform into a red robot, "I'd like you to meet the real Felicia Danzig. This is Flashdance."

Flashdance kneels down to Trevor's level, he is rather nervous as he's never met a real transformer before, "Whoah, pure wickedness dudes!" He exclaims, "But can't everyone see ya?" He asks.

Laura moves around in front of Flashdance and then gets Trevor's attention back to her eye level again, to make it look like Trevor is talking to her and Flashdance replies, "Nah, ah can make holograms an' stuff, see?" She points over to the car park where her vehicle chassis once was and there it is still, but as a hologram, "Complete with touchin' capabilities, go ahead, go an' check it out!"

While she watches the three of the young adults go over and check out the hologram of her vehicle mode, Laura and Casey stay behind.

"Now why ya be doin' dat for?" Asks her younger sister still in her Biomode.

Flash' shrugs her shoulder's and says, "He seems lahke a good kid, so whah not?"

Casey looks up at her sister angrily and points, "Ya be too trustin', ya nut case! We already bein' in enough trouble dis week cause'o someone's ideas hmm? Ella goin'ta be annoyed wit' ya, again!" She says as she put her hands on her hips.

Flash' just smiles and watches the others around the hologram, "Look who's callin' ya'll a nut case!"

She ushers them out of the way of the hologram so she can transform into the car space over the hologram and allows the three to get in.

"Heh, tha more tha merriah ah say, we need all tha friends we can get!" Flash' says.

Casey gets Flashdance to make a cover hologram for her and she transforms into her robot mode and then into her vehicle mode with Laura getting into her front seat.  
"She…She's one too!" Stammers an astounded Trevor.

"Yep." says Laura, "Their whole family is." She asks the others, "So let's go for a drive guys, seeing as how none of us have any more classes today, eh?"

Trevor can't help but sit in the car with them and asks many questions as he could muster. And as he does, they drive off into town for the afternoon.

*

Elsewhere in the Alliance territories, Nova and the Dinosaur teams had just returned from their first foray. Many of them were dented and scratched as they had come across Dominion Necromancers who were also in the middle of retrieving a Power Matrice from a planet within the Alliance.

As there was not many of the Necromancers, and as they had not wanted to be found out being in Alliance territory, they had come along here to the planet in the Avian system, amongst a species called the Aquila and tried to relieve them of a Matrice that was hidden there.

But it was not as hidden as they thought, the device was on the person of an Alliance warrior called Airbourne.

She had been in the area of these planets on patrol as it was her home system and had gotten caught in the middle of the fire fight between the Dominion specialist faction, the Alliance airforce faction and the Saurian ground factions.

Between her valiantly fighting with her own team in the skies, as well as the dinosaur transformers all participating on the ground, they managed to drive most of the invaders off. But not before one of the Necromancers got smart and detected the Power Matrice within Airbourne.

At one stage they had downed her and gotten the best of her by singling her out and overwhelming her. She had been downed away from the main fighting force of the dinosaur teams and had her chest struts ripped opened in a haphazard fashion and the Matrice torn out.

Their fight had ended with Airbourne's team coming to the rescue and finding their leader close to death. But she was still holding on. She had lost a lot of fluid due to severed fuel lines and having her sparkcase cracked and scratched, so the Necromancer who did the job, could get at the Matrice she was in possession of.

She was found injured and almost dead, and immediately transported to the closest medical unit. While the rest of her team were ordered to continue scouting for and taking care of any Necromancers that were still in the area and take them out if they found any.

But of the teams, it was the Dinobots who were enjoying themselves the most. Even working with the Autobots they had not seen as much fighting since being reawakened on Earth and were now enjoying the intensity of the battle once again, and the Necromancers were certainly providing them with a challenge. They were glad that Jazz had sent them on this little assignment.

But all in all so far they had lost another Matrice to the Necromancers, and would have to pick up their pace if they were going to get any for them selves to keep from them, and stop them handing them over to Decellion and Galvetron, if that's what they were indeed doing.

*

The next day at the base Ella was making preparations for her own technological contributions to the local fair that was coming up in Seattle next week.

She, for many years had been living under the guise of an employee/inventor for the Drake Corporation under her son's ownership and control of the company in public since the 1970's, helping him along with funds every now and again to keep the company going.

She had had to hide the fact she was as old as she was, so every once in a while, she and her son, or one of her other children would switch around control of their business ventures to make it look like they were all different people, and did well to hide their true identities from both the general public and also the US Government.

She didn't like to design military weapons for the US military and their space faring section, but that is what she did. Adam quite often helped design all manner of spaceships and other technological devices as did her other sons, Akira and Lucas. They often did so from their respective Drake Corp companies in England and Japan.

Ella had just finished going over the final touches of her contributions that would be shipped out to the fair under sponsorship by Adam for Drake Corp.

She cleaned up and went downstairs to the biosphere to relax and get away from the hectic nature of the base that it had been for a while.

Sound Track had been running all the responsible parties for the recent mishap through the grinder and there were a fair few disgruntled mecha around the base, and ones that were avoiding Ella now due to her having gotten tired of telling them that Sound Track's punishments would stick despite their pleading to her constantly.

One of the lowest chambers was set up by the base residents a long time ago for relaxation. It was a biosphere that was a tropical representation of Earth and allowed for the mecha and human residents who could not blend in to the Earth environment, time to rest and relax and unwind if they so wanted. Ella quite often found herself here when she wanted to be alone, away from all the other base residents.

One mecha who had a strong part in the creation and design of this place, was Ranger, she was one of the 'Roughnecks' teams older members, having served on the team with Ella's birth mother, Nova, on the original team roster when the Roughnecks team was first sent to Earth to build and establish a defence outpost there, millions of years ago.

It was not long before Ella had settled that she was interrupted. She sighed, having forgotten to leave her comms. unit outside with the biosphere's computer.

It kept beeping till she answered it.

It was Bonecrusher on the long range comms.

Bonecrusher regaled her with a full report of what had happened with their next attempt of trying to get hold of a Matrice. They had failed to get the other unit also.

Ella had sighed again to herself. She was the one who had told Bones' to give her full reports of all that was happening with their mission.

It gave Ella an indication of what the Dominion were up to and how far ahead they were at getting all twelve of the Matrice units. So far Ella only knew they had four, Decellion's own, Sound Tracks, as well as two others that Nova and her two groups. She knew she had Freefall's and Bones' units, her own unit, as well as knowing that Optimus on Cybertron still had his. She however did not know where the other four were, if indeed there were only another four to be found.

After their last battle, millions of years ago, before her mission on Cybertron, she had then hidden from Decellion all over the galaxy, so they could turn up anywhere, inside or outside the Alliance.

But she had surmised that Decellion had given something to her Necromancers that would allow them to find the Matrices easily, much quicker than she would.

She conveyed her thoughts to Bonecrusher whom she knew would in turn give the information to Nova.

Once the conversation was over Ella had almost an hour of peace before a local call was automatically relayed through to her comms. by the Base's computer.

This time the disturbance was Laura.

Laura explained the events of the day before and the fun she had with a new member of the group, named Trevor James.

Ella had been advised about what had happened by Joyride, hoping to get her older sister in trouble yet again, but Ella had ignored it after Flashdance had explained her feelings about this Trevor, they had made friends with now and whom knew about the transformer femmes that Laura and her group knew about.

"Say you wouldn't happen to want to come up to the State Technology Fair in a few days in Seattle would you?" Asked Ella. She thought it might be a good way for Laura's friends to become accustomed to more mecha technology.

"Fair?" Laura says curiously.

"Yes, a Fair. A bunch of humans in one place showing off the things they can make!" Ella replies amused, trying to make a joke to the young teen.

"Sure I'll be in, it's on the weekend so I'll make time for it. I'll pass the word around to everyone and see who can make it and who can't and let you know ok."

"Alright." Was Ella's response.

"Sorry to disturb you and all Ella, I tried ringing my aunt's but their phone's aren't answering and the call got redirected to you like it sometimes does."

"That's fine; I'll talk to you later then."

Laura said her goodbyes and hung up, leaving Ella alone again to enjoy her solitude.

*

In Washington DC, the joint chiefs of staff were discussing with the President about their little project in Port Angeles on the other side of the country.

They had decided to leave the testing of the mecha units and also of the pilots who would be selected for these units at this facility under the command of the newly appointed base commander.

Recently, a Marissa Fairborn had contacted them with an urgent request to be included in this project when she had found out about it and seen the test results.

The staff had discussed it with each other for some time before coming to a decision that she would be beneficial to have around on the project considering her history with mecha in particular. The decision was relayed to her personally and she was beside herself, that she and her unit would be transferred to the Port Angeles Military Base for this project.

The other problem that they would need to discuss was Adam Drake and Drake Corp. The military did indeed want the plans for these mecha combat units for themselves. But there was also the fact that Drake Corp was their biggest contributor and they did not want to lose their biggest source of funds.

However, Adam Drake, creator of the mechanoid systems had his own plans. He knew that the US Government would attempt to subvert his original idea of paying back the Autobots for years of protection by creating a defence system whereas the humans could learn to defend themselves. He had added his own student picks into the mix and wanted to let them learn to defend their own planet, just as they do in the Alliance, both civilians and military personnel.

Adam's idea however was not known to the local residents of that area.

All of the construction had been done in a secret underground facility beneath the university that was also linked to the base at Dragon Mountain by a rail system, and even though he had to complete it on his own, it was almost done.

The US Government also had no idea of the secret base under that mountain in Dragon Valley, which had been under their noses for years.

The Dragon Valley Base was a cover for scientific and technological testing and manufacturing area. Not all knew this, some knew the truth but it was generally a secret.

A secret that had come out into the open lately. Ella was aware of this and was preparing herself for the inevitable if the Base's existence ever became public knowledge; she knew her team couldn't remain hidden forever, not with what has been going on around her lately.

Inside the base, all the mech civilians with secret lives came and went through the place for supplies in secret, using their alternate modes or their Biomodes that had been fashioned for them by Ella. This is the way it had been for a very long time.

Ella would prefer it stay that way, but who knew how much longer that would last.

*


	29. Chapter 29 A Day At The Fair

*A Day At The Fair*

*

Later during the week at the local fair before the event had started. The military had upgraded its security status when they arrived with their special cargo.

They had not intended to be showing off their newest top secret project to the general public, but it was the Presidents' idea and so they acceded to follow orders.

But what got their attention even more was that they saw Adam Drake had set up his own area with mecha units already.

This irks General Price somewhat as he had accompanied his group here today under the supervision of a team of security agents from E.D.C that had recently transferred to the base during the week for their new assignment. He did not know where Adam Drake had gotten the other mecha units from, but he surmised that the businessman had made use of his vast financial funds to make them. But where, he didn't know, as Adam had spent most of his time during the construction of the Military mecha units at the Port Angeles Military Installation. And only recently he had left the company of the military base to return to his business or so they thought.

'_How dare he undermine us like this!'_ Thinks the General. _'If he went and built his own mecha units then why in the hell did he get us to build our units?'_ He gets even more annoyed when he spots his daughter up upon one of the machines with another technician checking it out. He leaves his group to set up their area while he and his new off - sider walk hurriedly over to Adam's mecha units to see the General's daughter.

General Price had noticed that Adam and his group had set up three units. None of them were like the ones that he had built for them, they weren't as big but they did look stronger, and better armoured though.

He looks up to where his daughter is.

"Oh, hey Daddy!" Calls out Alexandra.

The General calls back, "Ally please get down from there, it's not safe."

"Oh Dad please I'm fine, It's perfectly...!" She yelps as she slips but is grabbed by the wrist of Dr. Jackson Wheeler who was with her at the time. He happened to be showing Alex' some tech systems.

The General does notice the Professor and wonders why he is here after he had been helping the Military at their base with their mechs. But for now, he can only put his hands on his hips and shake his head.

"I was going to say 'safe', but was cut off by my almost falling!" Alex' replies when she gets down to the ground and has to face her father.

"Now don't make me say I told you so." He states calmly.

"It wouldn't matter Daddy, you would say it anyway, you wouldn't be able to help yourself!" Comes the smart assed comment from his daughter, a little vehemence in her voice due to her father being an overbearing control freak at times who worried too much.

The General sighs again and turns around to walk away back to the Military's area for the fair and leaves his daughter and Adam Drake's area to themselves.

"So that's your daughter?" Asks his companion Marissa on the way back.

"Yes." He replies flatly.

"Hmmm." Thinks Marissa, "Reminds me of her mother!"

"Yes very." Came the somewhat amused reply.

When they arrive back at their area to continue the set up, Marissa states, "I hope some Autobots get a chance to show up for the fair, I haven't seen a fair few of my old friends in ages.

The General was none fussed about the E.D.C. Commander's comment and goes into to his makeshift office

*

A few days later at the fair, it was the middle of the second day and the crowds were overwhelming.

Many had come in response to a rumour that the Military would be adding a secret project at the last second and revealing it to the public.

Some had also come in response to the engineer, Adam Drake's announcement that he would have his own private project to show off and let the general public get a close up look and see for themselves as usual, whereas General Price's project was off limits and people could only look from gangplanks surrounding the units. Adam let people sit in and see inside his units. Needles to say the line up at his hangar was longer and more crowded than the Military's one.

And General Price was slightly peeved. The reason he was asked to come to the technology Fair was to show the public what the military now had to offer and get people to sign up and join. It worked but only to a degree.

Adam Drake had upstaged their presentation and taken away their limelight, and the General felt that their presence here today was somewhat diminished. But it wasn't a complete failure. At least not yet.

Elsewhere at the fair, the Spyhunters were putting on a stunt show on the main area of tarmac. This place was an old airport at some stage and was perfect for jets and pilots to do stunt shows, making use of the runways, but for now the runway was being used by cars.

As far as the general public knew, the Spyhunter's were just a bunch of stunt drivers. All of the cars utilised holographic simulators to appear as if they had drivers. But none knew they were actually Transformers. They had been called in by Ella to attend in order to take a break from their work in Britain.

Elsewhere, some of the Roughnecks members were looking on. One in particular, was Sound Track, who was eager to participate, but instead just watched from the sidelines for now. She was looking on in her Biomode, and was right now thinking to herself.

She was getting a might anxious about having her main power core back and although she trusted Ella's judgement in the matter to let the Matrice be for now, she was worried about what was going to happen with it, she wasn't a clairvoyant like her sister was, only a telepath, but even that didn't help her. She still retained some sort of connection to it and knew that the Decepticons and Decellion's scientists had not yet been able to do anything with it, but it didn't stop her from worrying.

Unlike the Cybertronian Prime, any female who bears a Matrice is automatically able to sense the deep seated spirit within the core of the Matrice device itself. In Sound Track's case, she could vaguely feel the consciousness of the blue dragon within the Matrice she was assigned to be the guardian of.

She was kind of glad that Ella had told her of Nova's plan to retrieve the stolen Matrices from Decellion, by sending in Bonecrushers troops along with her, as well as the Autobots' team, the Dinobots. But so far they had been unsuccessful in getting anything back from them.

Ella had sidled up behind Sound Track's Biomode as her human face of Desonia Lanzig, and asked, referring to the stunt show, "Well if you want to have a go I'm sure we can arrange something, after all, Jazz and some of his team are here too. I'm sure they'd love to have some fun too."

Sound Track just smirks at the comment when she realises the energy signatures of her new Autobot companions show up in the area on her scanners, and Ella needs no response to know what the smirk on Desonia's faceplate means.

*

The Aerialbots had agreed to attend the day's events at Jazz's request, being that Jazz thought a day out for rest and relaxation might help to soothe some battle weary circuits amongst the mechs under his command here on Earth for a little while. A few of the other general soldiers had come along also.

The Aerialbots were enjoying their air display immensely.

And Jazz had just joined Sound Track to watch the other Autobots having fun around various areas of the fair, hoping to Primus that the twins were staying out of trouble, wherever they were.

On the way over to sit with Sound Track, He switches to his Pretender shell and Jazz looks around at all the stalls here today and wonders to himself. _'Not tha kind of advanced tech we're used ta but...But I guess it's tha best they can do for now!'_ He thinks.

Over at the Military Stand, Marissa Fairborn had just finished her morning security shift of guarding the mechs at the Military pavilion when she spots an old friend, namely Jazz, on the other side of the fair compound talking with an African American woman she thought for a moment was a singer from an old rock band. Marissa knew the face of Jazz's human form very well.

'_It would figure it was her if that's who Jazz is talking to, he does love music and she is a musician and a singer!'_ She felt a slight pang of jealousy at Jazz spending time with another female besides herself.

But she didn't know about Desonia's true form.

Marissa had, for a very long time, had somewhat of a crush on the mech. She couldn't help it, and she supposed she wouldn't have been the only adoring human female in the world to notice that Jazz is so easy to get along with, easy on the eye and so very human in his personal mannerisms.

Over at the Military's pavilion, they had announced that they were taking their mecha out and conducting a demonstration.

What they had done today was bring two aerial combat units for a mock fight in the skies over the old base being used for the fair.

'_Figures!'_ Ella thinks to herself, as she was close by the pavilion when the announcement went off.

She radioed two mecha that she was holding in reserve to catch the Military off guard just to see how used to the new units the pilots were. And also to give the crowd a little entertainment.

There was a moment of oohs and ahhhs out on the tarmac as everyone who could see watched the Military jet mecha combat units transform to their jet modes and take off to start their aerial manoeuvres.

*

"I do not see why we have to do this? These humans are pathetic and so are any technology they make for themselves." Whines a male.

"Remember thet these mecha units were built by Edem Dreke, Comrede." Replies a female.

The male remembers that Adam is Ella's son and has a lot of resources and power at his disposal and so shuts up and does not continue his verbal tirade.

*

Ella had planned for two of her own jets to swoop in as they were doing their show and make them think her two wingers were a real threat.

Off in the distance she saw a familiar F-15 Eagle jet painted in familiar colours with a Decepticon emblem. That was Starscream. Ella had shown him how to morph his robotic mode from his Cybertronian jet mode to his old Earth jet mode and he was given instructions to flank the Military jet mecha's and only out – manoeuvre them but not destroy or damage the units.

He was too gleeful at accepting this idea. He had wanted a chance to cut loose and issue some payback towards the Military for all those years of shooting bullets at him and scratching his Cybertronian paintwork way back when he was at war with Earth and its Government's under Megatron's leadership as the Decepticon Air Commander. But now he had just have to settle for the fact he felt superior to the humans and their mecha jets in every which way. At least he would have the chance to show it...

Ella just hoped he would actually listen and follow her idea, for once, as he was notorious for making his own plans and going his own way. But he was not having a choice now as his new collar was much stronger than the last one and he couldn't help but behave for most of the time.

And that was why she had Freefall there with him, watching his every move and ensuring Starscream didn't get out of hand or go AWOL on them, just in case.

Starscream did several expert manoeuvres in the air around the two mecha in the hopes of getting the pilots to beak formation and follow.

The crowd, having seen both the Military and the Drake Corp units, just thought it was all part of a co – operative demonstration.

On the ground, the Military unit was in a state of defensive urgency, watching the jets up above. General Price had seen Starscream up above and was watching the warrior intently. Because of the former Decepticons reputation preceding him, the orders issued were to capture the two rogue mecha plaguing the Military units

They had not yet issued a warning to evacuate the fair as Starscream had yet to fire on the crowd or any surroundings and this unsettled them a bit, not knowing what he was going to do.

But they hadn't seen Freefall yet. She was still waiting close by for her turn to join the fray.

When the pilots had received their orders to pursue Starscream, they did so, but were taken aback when Freefall joined in. Even though she no longer had her dragon alternate mode, she could still manoeuvre just as well in her Deltronian Jet mode.

But they didn't know who she was and so assumed she was another Decepticon Jet.

They fired on her too, but could not make their ammunition hit their mark. They same was to be said for Starscream.

Both of them skilfully dodged the Military and also Autobot jets that had joined in. And after a solid half hour or so got away from the group of seven jets and found themselves a secluded area to land and transform in. They transformed back to their robot modes when they touched down, and then quickly back to their human Biomodes. They found their way back to the fair, not to far from where Ella was standing.

Both of the mecha quickly blended in with the crowd. Freefall was grateful that when Ella made Starscream's new collar that she didn't have to visually sparksit him all the time. She could track him anywhere now and not worry about where he had gotten to. So she went her own way into the crowd and let him go his.

Ella spotted Starscream in his Biomode not too far away from where she was and walked over to him. He wasn't at all bothered by her just standing next to him.

He had his thoughts elsewhere for now. To Starscream, it was still unknown to him as to why he had stayed on Earth, when he knew he could be off world taking his revenge on Galvetron, but it just didn't seem to be important to him anymore.

He had since discovered Ella had him repaired using her own blood fuel, a black techno-organic liquid called Psion, making him very different than he was before. He felt nobler and less like his old Decepticon self, which often annoyed him to no end, as he felt less able to express himself as he thought he had the right to be. The black blood in his system endeavoured to suppress his darker side to the point where it equally balanced the good side in him that he always tried to unsuccessfully suppress himself. He was quite sure about how much Ella could feel the loathing he had for and what she had done to him right now.

Ella thought about the other Decepticons for a moment. She didn't come across many in the Delta system, not many who were game to wear the Cybertronian insignia that is.

There were many mechs who, at one stage, were Decepticons, but had since removed their old insignia so they couldn't be found by other Cybertronian authorities. But they all seemed to congregate in the Delta system as hardly any Cybertronians came there. Many had now accepted the insignia that most Deltronians used that was a combination of the two factions of both sides in appearance.

Once, a long time ago, many proudly displayed an homage to the Decepticon ideals and history but because of the trouble that it caused in allowing them free reign, had all had to be registered to keep them under control, unless they were incarcerated or living on Delta Six, where most of them were unregistered or in hiding from the Alliance Security Forces.

Some Decepticons she had also taken under her wing after that.

But most were now kept to the Delta system, more specifically Delta Six and barely showed their faceplates anywhere else within the Alliance now, unless they were a high rank of some kind in the government or military, or were working under a caretaker like Ella.

Freefall had turned up behind Starscream and Ella and looked on as the other two were watching the Military pavilion.

Ella asks Freefall, "Interesting display you showed, but perhaps you could go and show these other jets how to fly properly eh?"

"Da comrede." Is all she says in her Russian accent.

While Starscream thinks to himself about how he could show them all up, feeling proud about his supreme flying skills.

The Aerialbots had landed not too far away, transforming into their robot modes amidst the applause of the crowd. The human's military jets coming in via the runway close by. But neither group could find where Starscream and the other jet had gone.

Ella smiles as another idea forms in her mind, "Perhaps Starscream should revert back to his robot mode and join you in an air challenge Freefall?"

Freefall bursts out laughing. "You, comrede, expect him..." Pointing to Starscream in his Biomode, who had lifted his head at the mention of his name, "To be eble beat me in air chellenge?" Freefall's Russian type accent didn't show as much in her robot mode as it did in her Biomode, but it was still evident nonetheless. "Very well comrade." She concedes. She crosses her arms. "I eccept your chellenge!"

She quietly waits for Starscream to accept, which he does and then they wander off to find a safe place to shift out of their Biomodes and into their robot modes again. When Freefall is done, she then quickly transforms and takes off, and accelerates into the sky, with Starscream not far behind.

Ella turns to Jazz and a couple of the other Autobots who had been watching them, and asks, "Go and keep your optics on this because you're going to want to get a visual on this battle!" They then wander over to the Drake Corp Pavilion and watch the screens.

As soon as the Aerialbots discover the appearance of the two jets again, they take off after them into the air.

Meanwhile Marissa has finally caught up with them having to fight through the immense crowds to get to Jazz and his friends who had now gathered mostly in one spot, she breathes a sigh of relief.

*

Freefall had contacted Flashdance who was close by to Ella by that time, and projected the images onto a giant television screen by attaching herself to it with some cables. This attracted the attention of the humans near the screen, thinking it was some kind of air race and so came and watched the giant screen curiously.

The other Autobots who weren't with Sound Track and some of the other members of the Roughnecks, enjoying themselves in a stunt show, were also watching the screen close by. Jazz and Bumblebee, in their Pretender shells had joined Ella and the group not long after the jets had taken off.

Bumblebee commented "Look at her go. She makes Starscream look like an amateur!"

Jazz exclaims jokingly "Yeah, finally good to see that over inflated air head way outta his league!"

Bumblebee just looks at Jazz; he had obviously decided not to hide the enmity he felt towards Starscream, due to his past dealings with him.

"Aw, c'mon Bee, it's not like I'm not tryin' ta be nice ta him. He was our enemy for ages and I'm one ta believe that he's one mech who'll never change his spots, so ta speak."

"But you changed." Jazz couldn't wipe the look of surprise from his face. "You're probably wondering how I knew about that right? Well Ironhide wasn't exactly all that quiet on some of our drinking nights, and now was Kup either."

"Oh well!" Sighs Jazz, "Guess there's no hard in it bein' out in that open, but do me a favour li'l buddy, keep tha secret ta ya'self ok."

"I will Jazz, don't worry!" Says Bumblebee amused.

Marissa finally got to them and calls out, "Hi guys, long time no see!"

Jazz replies, "Well hey Marissa, aren't ya a sight f'sore optics!"

Marissa smiles and shakes hands with both of them in turn as they chat and catch up. It had been so long since any of them had seen each other.

"So what'r ya doin' here t'day girl?" Asks Jazz.

"Those Mecha combat units the Military has brought in today," Marissa thought it okay to let the Autobots in on what was going on, as the technology they'd used for building the units, from what she'd managed to find out, was derived from Transformer technology and so she figured they had a right to know. "I'm the new Commanding Officer of the team that will be piloting them, based out of Port Angeles."

"Well hey that's great news! Now that we know where ya gonna be, we can all drop in every now an' again for a visit!"

Marissa remembers how it used to be at the Mt Hood Military Installation near to where the Autobots were stationed at the Ark. They were always dropping in on her then and getting in trouble, well, the twins did anyway, and so did Jazz occasionally.

"So I heard someone made you a Commander too?" Marissa asked. She had only just discovered recently that Jazz was now the ranking Commanding Officer in charge of Autobot City.

"Yeah, that they did!" Snickered Bumblebee, "Not that it's helped us any!"

Jazz gives his diminutive friend a loving headlock and a ruffle of the hair before he lets go and starts to laugh it off. At this Marissa joins in.

*

On Charr, the Dinosaurers ship had touched down outside the citadel that was being built over the ridge from where they were situated. They had set up a defensive position on the ridge to watch the comings and goings at the citadel below.

Before leaving Delta Three, Nova had given them a full brief of the items that were to be recovered. The whole team knew it was important and they had to be recovered from Decellion, Galvetron and the Decepticons.

The Dinobots on the other hand were just there for a fight.

Of the team members, several were on the ridge and several had remained behind in the ship for back up.

The team that was to go in, prepared themselves and selected their entry point, unaware that there was already something going on inside.

Nova hadn't really thought that this was the best plan to go with because she could not ascertain just how many Decepticons there were, or even how many Necromancer and Destron mecha Decellion had at her command either, so she just decided to wing it, much to Bonecrushers chagrin.

*

Back at the airbase, Starscream, Freefall and Airbourne had returned to the runway they had originally taken off from with the Aerialbots hot on their tails.

Ella had congratulated Starscream via private comms. for trying to outdo Freefall, he however was not happy at all at being beaten. Freefall not the usual smiling type playfully gave him a tap in the shoulder; she gave him a small smile before anyone noticed though.

But as soon as they had landed and transformed, they had been followed in by the Aerialbots and surrounded by them for apprehension.

This situation drew Adam Drake.

He couldn't allow his mother to be seen associating with the two mecha in public yet so he decide to intervene himself.

Jazz also saw this and broke away from his conversation with Bumblebee and Marissa to see what was going on.

"You don't have to worry about those two Silverbolt." Commented Adam as he found his way to the leader of the group.

"On the contrary, Mr Drake, these two have wilfully disrupted today's activities and…"

Silverbolt was interrupted by Slingshot, "And bein' that that bozo Starscream is a wanted mech under our laws, he's all ours!" He said as he was cracking his metal knuckle joints.

While Starscream snorted in amused disgust, Adam continued, "Be that as it may, he's on _my_ payroll."

Silverbolt's expression doesn't change but then he spots jazz and looks to him for advice.

Jazz looks up at the young Aerialbot leader and the look he gives him confirms it as far as Silverbolt is concerned.

"Let him go." States Silverbolt firmly.

"But…" Whine Air Raid and Slingshot at once.

"Do it." Snarls their leader loudly and they move to allow the femme and their old foe to move out of the defensive circle they had placed around them.

Starscream is all the while verbally mouthing off at the Aerialbots and its all Skydive and Fireflight can do to hold their comrades back as Freefall tries to get Starscream to shut up. Which doesn't work.

Jazz, to alleviate the situation, sends the Aerialbots back to base to go back on duty so there would be no more trouble. He assured Silverbolt that he and the others would keep an optic on Starscream for trouble if need be and would call Silverbolt of the Aerialbots were needed.

Ella was all the while watching the goings on closely from a distance. After a while she had been joined by Freefall and Starscream in their Biomodes.

Freefall had managed to get them away and into a secluded area to change to their Biomodes again. But as soon as she arrived by Ella's side, she left again soon after, and merged into the nearby crowd, leaving Starscream alone with Ella.

Starscream stood with her in solitude.

Ella was watching some of the other humans amongst the crowd, hanging around watching the Autobots and her team the Roughnecks showing off some driving skills.

She smirks without changing her gaze, "You know, if you hang around long enough Star' you could probably be as good as her?"

Starscream not liking to be placed second to anyone, crosses his arm and comments, "I'm already as good as her. I just let her win!"

Ella laughs, "Yeah, sure you did! You and that ego of yours!" She continues to talk but jokingly, "You know, I might have to team you up with her so she can teach you a thing or two!" Starscream looks over at where Freefall was standing where he had spotted her in the crowd some distance away, talking to a few Roughnecks members.

"Heh!" Says Ella, "So you like what you see eh!" Noticing that Starscream was looking a little too hard at Freefall and her sleek black and indigo figure.

Starscream vehemently denies it of course, "I don't like anyone but me, no one else is good enough, and you should know that."

"And you've been around me a little while now. Long enough to know that I can see through your façade and egotistical clamouring." She puts her hand on his shoulder and he groans in objection.

He looks at her, but then looks in the same direction Ella was looking in. He huffily crosses his arms and says, "I don't like this at all."

"Which part Star', the part where you don't get to do your own thing like you always used to do as an Air Commander of the Decepticon Army or the part where you have to sacrifice that freedom to become something better than you know you're capable of being. You're still the same old stubborn, wilful and ambitious mech I knew so long ago back when I was masquerading as a mech on Cybertron. You know that stubbornness is probably one reason why Megatron kept you around for so long eh? Or perhaps it was tha ambition, or something else entirely. Who rally knows. Maybe he kept you around because he actually liked you!" At this Ella broke out in laughter and it only gave Starscream a disgusted expression, and a silent response. She was not inclined to tell Starscream about something she had seen about him with her futuristic insights.

Ella was momentarily distracted from her joy amidst a catfight that had broken out between her twins. Sometime during the flight performance Sound Track had resumed her robot mode and was now having it out verbally with her twin, Flashdance.

She could clearly hear Sound Track and Flashdance yelling at each other and calling each other names.

'_Sigh!'_ She though. It was rare for the sisters to show emotion like this out in public as they did most of their fighting on the Dragon Valley Base. But when they did fight, it was an all out brawl.

She left Starscream where he was with a reminder that he would not be able to go very far due to the range of his collar, that would keep him close to Freefall, whom he knew would be watching him when Ella left him alone.

When Ella arrived at the scene of the fight she looked around and saw that one of the twins had gotten a cracked faceplate for his trouble for trying to break the two femmes up. Sunstreaker was trying to help his brother up as Sideswipe had gotten quite the blow from Flashdance.

"Geez and here I thought we were bad, those two are just plain murderous!" he commented lightly, trying to sound jovial even though he was in pain.

"Well, now ye know wha' our twins'r like lad!" Laughs Burnout.

Ella hadn't even been able to find out how it started and did not care. She berated both of the femmes for their behaviour and directed them to quit it. They of course listened. She was one person whom they didn't want to mess with, considering what Ella's personal power level could do to either of them if they made her angry.

In the end she just gave up trying to find out what had actually started it and left, leaving the others to enjoy the rest of the day at the fair. And let her spend some time alone here in Portland.

*


	30. Chapter 30 Family Values

*Family Values*

*****

Days after the science fair, Freefall had headed in the direction of New York City due to the fact she was asked to attend a function by Ella.

Starscream however was not at all impressed that he was asked to attend the function also. And was rather vehement about voicing his disgust at having to be in the company of humans once again. But in the end Ella just let Freefall go alone and she kept Starscream on the base.

By the time all this was happening, the Spyhunters, had already left in their carrier ship that was in the cargo bay of the Dragon Valley Base, all of them but one member who had remained behind for the summit, in a few days, in New York.

Ella's son was attending the summit in her place to apprise the United Nations about the Alliance and allow them to make a decision as to being involved in its membership.

Not long after the Fair, a contact from the Alliance had come and met with Ella and some other hidden representatives on Earth and from there they met with one or two contacts of their in the United Nations, which in turn got some interested people wanting to talk to these, off world contacts.

The UN was open to the idea of talking to members of other races in the advent of the Cybertronians now being semi permanent residents of Earth and the work the Autobots had done.

Ella had also asked along Carlita, with her partner Tempest and her two charges, Gateway and Getaway, as those two only ever behaved themselves when Carlita had Tempest were with them. The twins had adopted the two females as their maternal figures and woe begone anyone who got between the twins and them, they loved them both to death

Ella was also looking for an excuse to get them off the base after the twins' last week of seemingly endless pranking that had annoyed everyone, herself included.

Freestyle and Rockslide had gone along to observe and record, but also if any trouble broke out, they could take care of it, seeing as how both femmes were not only accomplished spies, but also fighters and would assist where necessary.

Jazz had also sent some representatives along, namely Hound, Tracks and Blaster, who was quite enjoying his new alt mode.

His old cassette bots were also enjoying themselves. Eject and Rewind no longer had to worry about their transforming into cassettes anymore as they were permanently in their robot modes utilising all of Blasters new system hardware in the new vehicle mode, as well as being able to cover themselves now in human looking nanotech mesh skins. To any outsider not looking well enough, they just looked like two ordinary reporters riding around in a news van. But that wasn't all that Ella and the Nebulonian scientists built into them, both were now packed full to the brim with all the latest spy and communications technology that Ella and the Nebulonians had access to.

The others including Steeljaw, Ramhorn, Grandslam and Raindance, had the same advantages, but with a difference. While their new animal forms were more streamlined and less blocky, their ability to transform into cassettes now negated, they also had a dual capability to transform into a humanoid robotic form, as well as become hardware that could them attach itself to Blaster's vehicle mode, either internally or externally.

Tracks went along because New York was one of his favourite places and he wanted to catch up with his old friend Raoul when the whole situation was over and catch up on old times.

And Hound just liked humans, and usually preferred their company rather than his own compatriots at times. Most of them knew that but no one ever said it out aloud, except for Cliffjumper on a few occasions.

*

Heather had also returned to the base after having escorted the Droidian mechs that she was temporarily babysitting and some guests back home to the Delta system and was now in the maintenance bay washing her new truck.

One of her younger sisters had the day off and was on the base as was her two other siblings who had returned with Heather back from the Delta system.

Her younger brother Balthazar and his young mech partner Meanstreak and the mech's female companion, Ghost Hunter, and also Heather's other younger sister Krysta who was sick and had a day off school.

Heather was also off from that school. She had not been able to keep up with the teaching position due to her work with Ella and so she had let the teaching position go and decided instead to start a freight business along with the new truck she had. Ella had outfitted the new truck with all of her technology as soon as Heather had picked a chassis out and Ella, Heartia and Felicia had gone to work on it, fully decking it out along with an AI control system.

Heather was also grateful that she had received word from her mother, that her father, Peter Rawlings, would be visiting today. She knew he had been undertaking command of a project for Ella and the Autobots down south, but hadn't heard from him in a while.

Vanguard, or Vanessa as she was also known, was Peter's wife or bondmate. She had the day off today and had put pressure on Ella and also Jazz to help convince Peter to stop and take a break from the project.

Ella had called the ones under her durisdiction to take a day off and relax, while Jazz had to do the same with Jetfire. As the large mech had been a tad bored with some of his other projects lately and has been drawn to their old base and decided to help them with the rebuild. On and off, several others from under Jazz's command did the same to occupy their time when things were quiet, which also helped to get the work done.

But the thing with Peter was that he was a workaholic. He had come back to the Base with the others and had gone straight into Ella's office and had started working on her paperwork.

She found it somewhat amusing that he had walked right in, sat down and began working opposite her on the backlog of paperwork and data files she was trying to catch up on.

When Peter had first come into the Base from awakening from his 19th Century surgery, he had been employed as Ella's general secretary for a while before working with some of the other mecha and then finally in frontline agent work for decades before now discovering his true identity.

While these work habits were familiar to him, it was also a role he had performed while working with the Autobots here on Earth, and it amused Ella.

It also amused Jazz when he came looking for Peter, as he also knew what a workaholic his old friend was.

*

While the others were taking the day off at the base, Ella was wandering around the base in Starscream's company after leaving the others in her office. One of the very few times, she had to admit that he didn't scowl or whine or complain about how better he was than everyone else.

She had managed to garner his attention and the conversation around science, which kept his interest.

Though Starscream would never openly admit it, he often joined the open scientific debate with Ella as it reminded him of the days he spent time with his old friend Jetfire. That was another thing he would never openly admit to, that he missed his old friend and those more peaceful days of old.

Starscream wasn't happy with being stuck on a base where he knew there would be humans, but it gave him an opportunity to be away from the watchful optics of Freefall as she watched him like a hawk. Though Ella never did. She gave him his space to be himself and never stifled his opinions when they were alone together. But he knew that there was always someone watching, even if it wasn't Freefall, someone else was always there to remind him of that, but it never happened in Ella's company and so he sought her out more often than not when he was on the base.

Though he thought she had an annoying habit of staying in her human form most of the time and he was sickened by the fact he felt the need to do the same, and also by the fact he stayed here at the base openly now without the thought of escape.

Many times he had come up with the idea of it being subtle brainwashing or some kind of manipulation, but when he thought he would be able to prove it, that was dispelled by proof that it wasn't and in the end his mind became so frustrated at not being able to find a good reason why he should go, he just stayed and enjoyed the luxury the base now had to offer him.

Something that was never afforded him in the Decepticon army, as the spoils were few and far between at times fighting against their then enemy the Autobots. He had even begun to stop seeing a line between him and his old foes. This wasn't something he was alone in thinking either.

During the last few days, Nightfall and his team had returned to the base for medical rest and recovery from battle, and Skywarp had told Starscream of something. He had never figured the dark natured mech to have much intelligence but what he had said had made a profound impact on Starscream and the more he thought about it the more he believed it.

Skywarp had quickly succumbed to the luxury that was afforded him and the other jet transformers that were now working with Ella, and Starscream was seeing first hand how well they were looked after, a lot better than they had been as soldiers for the Decepticon Army had ever done for them at the time or so he thought.

Starscream was brought out of his daze by Ella trying to get his attention.

"Anything wrong?" She asked.

He just scowled at her like she was insane and then crossed his arms.

Ella just shrugged and looked away. She had noticed that Flashdance had brought some visitors into the base yet again.

"You're really going to have to stop bringing all these pets home Flash'. You know you can't keep them!" Mused Ella.

Flashdance was in her robot mode and had her visor down, and all she did was grin. She had Laura sitting on one shoulder and her friend Christine on the other. However both asked to be let down shortly after they came into the rec room and Ella had talked to Flashdance. Flash' then changed to her human form and found a seat with her entourage in one corner of the rec room.

Ella noticed Flashdance had again let another human onto the base who previously didn't know their base was in existence. Ella sighed at the mecha scientist's friendliness and openness towards others. It annoyed her sometimes but there was always a reason for certain individuals coming into the base at certain times and so she let it go.

Ella left the rec room, but as she went out the door she comments to Laura, "Make sure your friend is given the list of rules before he leaves." And then she was gone.

Laura nodded and Trevor gave her a quizzical look, "You're new here, we have rules we have to abide by just being in this place."

"Oh ok." He stammered. He was awestruck at the sheer size of this place and didn't know what to look at first, so his attention was everywhere, "Gee I'm glad I'm not friends with that jerk off Ian anymore, coz then I woulda missed out on the awesomeness that this place is!"

Many of them with him laughed, as they had gone through the same feeling when they first came into the base for the first time. Little by little their group had grown and also it had come to feel like more of a surrogate family rather than just a bunch of friends who went to a local high school and studied together.

As Trevor was looking around he noticed Starscream. The mech had returned to his robot mode shortly after Ella left and so had sat himself in the corner alone. But it wasn't long before some of his seeker friends, who had come from medical, had joined him.

What got his attention was that Starscream was arguing with a younger golden version of himself, and Trevor had to ask, "Dudes, you know, is that mech over there a Decepticon, coz he looks like that pinhead jet called Starscream? Isn't he like the bad guys' right hand mech, what's his name, Megatron? Shouldn't he be locked up or something?"

Some of the group were just about to explain to Trevor what the go was with Starscream and some of the other former Decepticon soldiers on the base, until Laura gets their attention.

Starscream had heard every word and aims the external shoulder blaster of his left arm at the group. "Perhaps someone should lock you up human." He says menacingly.

Ella meanwhile had just come back in having forgetting something and glares in Starscreams direction.

Skywarp who was on Starscream's left tells him and Starscream challenges her, "And what makes you think I will back down to you?"

"You," She points at Starscream, "Behave yourself. You don't want to know what happens to mecha that I pass back to the Alliance as fails for rehabilitation."

"And what pray tell would it be hmmm?" He lowers his gun from the humans' direction and leans forward on the table and puts his hands up under his chin, "Death by boredom at having being in the presence of so many filthy little humans?"

Ella had walked up to the table, and the other mechs who were sitting next to Starscream knew that look on her face. They would rather face their old Commander Megatron than mess with what could be coming, so they quickly vacated the seats and left Starscream alone, finding a new seat elsewhere but still watching intently.

Ella watches them move and she bursts out laughing, "You see," She waives her hands in their direction, "Even they know when to stay and when to go, but most of all when to shut up." Starscream just glares right back at her, "Just knock it off Star' leave the humans alone."

"Whatever." He says as he sits back in the booth and smirks.

As she passes the other group on her way back out after having retrieved her forgotten item, Skywarp sneakily puts a small paint bomb in her hood that was sitting at the back of her neck and it explodes in the hall outside when she leaves.

Ella screams "Skywarp, my office now!"

"I'm so outta here! Gotta catch me first!" He yells back at her as he teleports out of the base to God only knew where.

Somewhere in another corner, two Autobots were watching and the red one had a wide smirk on his lips as he thought of a dastardly idea.

The other, a yellow mech sees this expression on his brother and coldly replies, "Don't even think about it."

"Aww, C'mon bro' it'll b fun."

"That's what you always say, but then we get caught and I get stuck in some dank corner of a cell having to rot for a day or two scratching up my precious paintwork because of your childish stupidity."

"C'mon, help me find Skywarp."

A grunt comes from Sunstreaker.

"Please!" Begs Sideswipe as he flickers his optics in an attempt to look cute to sway his twin.

The yellow warrior sighs and then says, "You know I hate you and hope you die someday leaving me alone and free of your stupid ideas for good."

"Yeah I love you too bro'." Sideswipe says as he gets up, "Now let's go look for 'Warp. First let's ask some dastardly seekers some questions."

Sunstreaker looks over to the group of mechs and then looks back at his brother, "Well at least some good may come of this!" He says as he cracks his knuckle joints.

"I figured you'd like that part." Mused the red twin.

Back over in his corner Starscream had turned back into his human form and had turned his attention back to the seat to retrieve something. When he turned back around again he found he wasn't alone.

It was Christine and Laura, "What do you two want?" He sneers. He only tolerated these two bothering him as they were always letting him talk about himself when ever they found him on the base.

Each of them silently took an arm each and gripped firmly. He tried to get loose but couldn't as they had a firm hold. Not that he tried very hard anyhow.

They escort him over to their table to introduce him to their newest friends where Trevor meekly offers his hand out albeit nervously, fully knowing about Starscream's reputation as a Decepticon soldier in the past.

Starscream just scoffed at Trevor, slapped his hand out of the way and said, "Don't even think about touching me human." Then he storms off out of the rec room.

"Oh well!" Says Laura, "At least we tried!" Then she and Christine sit back down with the others and continue their talking.

*

Once again some of the Autobots had come to visit the Dragon Valley base as a home away from home. It gave them a chance to drop in and see their old friends who were working on the Ark, as well as make new friends from amongst the civilian Transformers that quite often frequented the Base from the Delta system.

They would soon be leaving as Jazz had put out a call for them to get together by the entrance before they left, to return to base for duties.

But there was one amongst them who didn't want to go back with his team.

Hot Rod had been with the others today but realised he was spending more time lately on Ella's base when he wasn't on shift and wanted to stay there on a permanent basis.

He wasn't tired of his Autobot friends or of being a soldier or of being a hero but he thought he just needed a time out from all of it and knew that staying on Ella's base could provide that, even if only temporarily.

He had already had a private discussion with Jazz when they got to the Dragon Valley Base earlier. Jazz wasn't happy about letting him stay on the base and told Hot Rod he'd have to talk to Optimus about it when he had the chance. But he understood Hot Rod's personality very well and agreed to let him stay only if Ella agreed to it.

Hot Rod didn't have the chance to catch Ella before she had gone up to the landing pad from her office, but had run into Heather instead on her way back from the maintenance bay, going to the rec room, and sat with her to chat instead.

Heather had told him that Ella would eventually come and see her as she wanted to talk to Heather after she'd talked to Peter and Vanessa about something up on the landing pad.

"She shouldn't be too much longer." She commented.

Heathers younger sister Krysta had just joined them, as had her other siblings, Balthazar and Hailey, while their mecha, Highway, Ghost Hunter and Meanstreak went to sit and chat with the other mechs present.

Hot Rod shifts his transform circuits to become human sized and Krysta takes notice of him.

"So who is this?" Asks Krysta.

"That's Hot Rod, Krysta." Answers Heather.

"Nice to meet you." Says Hot Rod smiling at Heather's younger sister.

"Nice trick." Says Krysta amusingly, she turns to her sister and comments, "I hope we get to do that when we're older."

Hot Rod was a little confused by her reference at first but then gets it. He remembers that the two girls are relatives, daughters of Peter and Vanessa, and figured Krysta was all mechanoid like Heather was. He asks, "So it doesn't bother you two that both your parents are Autobots?"

"Nope!" Answers Heather and Krysta simultaneously, which makes them both laugh.

"Except they aren't both exactly Autobots are they, at least not anymore?" Says Heather. "It makes us no different than that of other Droidians. Because we have human DNA in our mechanoid bio-structure we have to age like normal humans before our system's start to convert to mechanical counterparts. I've aged faster than what Krysta here has. I'm just over 100 Earth years and I've been full mechanical since I was about 80. Krysta is different, she's still young, though all that raw energon in her system will probably slow her age down considerably and it'll be longer before she converts. She's ageing much slower than I did at that age."

"Raw energon?" Asks Hot Rod. Where Krysta starts glowing and pinkish lightening starts to dance between her outspread hands. Hot Rod uses his scanners and confirms what the energy is. "Whoa, now that's some talent you've got there. I don't know any mechs who can make their own energon, especially like that!" He says the last part amusingly.

"Who ever said I was a mech? I'm all organic Hot Rod. The reason my parents kept me hidden here on Earth away from the Delta system was so the bad guys wouldn't find me and use me."

"I can understand that. Considering what you can do, you would be a bonus to them and I don't think a pretty young thing like yourself would want to be a slave or something else."

Krysta was flattered by Hot Rod's complement, "I was bothered by what I found out they could do to me if they found me. But then I began to understand why my parents made me stay here, so I calmed down after a bit and realised that my parents loved me enough to make sure I was protected from harm."

They had not heard Ella walk in with Vanessa and Peter. Jazz was also with them, having joined them on their way from the landing pad.

"It's good to hear you say that kid." Says Vanessa. Krysta rushes over and hugs Vanessa. "So how's school?"

Krysta still hugging her mother says, "Same boring old place!" She spies the other white mech with Ella behind her parents and asks, "Who's the hottie with the boss lady?"

Jazz laughs at being called good looking; he smiles and says "Hey, I'm Jazz, what's your name?"

"Krysta." She had let go of her mother and walked over to Jazz. She had put one hand on her chin when Jazz put his hand out for a handshake.

Jazz was only being friendly but though he might have offended Krysta somehow when she didn't shake his hand.

"It's ok." She says. Then she coalesces some pink energy together in her hand, shoots out energy and it forms into a large hand, inflating roughly till it's the same size as Jazz's hand and puts the energy hand out to him for a handshake.

Jazz shakes the energy hand and smiles, "Now that's different!" He says amusingly. He lets go of the hand and turns to look down on Hot Rods smaller mech form. "Ella says it's ok for ya ta stay Hot Rod but I still gotta tell Prime what's goin' on ok."

"Yeah sure." Was Hot Rod's response.

"Hey wait a sec'?" Jazz turns to Krysta as she lets the last of the energy form dissipates. "Krysta?" He bends down to talk to the young teen.

"Yes?" She cranes her neck to look up at him.

"That energy? It wasn't energon based was it?"

"Yeah it was why."

"Just curious. So how's it work?"

"Well like most biological or mechanical Droidians we can either learn to power stream or are born with the ability to do it. Me? I can create raw energon at will and create solid energy constructs or crystalline forms from it."

"Sweet trick!" Jazz replies.

"Yeah it is at that, isn't it!" Krysta replies.

Ella looks at them both, and then looks to Hot Rod, "It's not going to be easy living here Hot Rod. If you're going to stay here than you're going to have to subscribe to my brand of training and it isn't a walk in Kaon!"

This makes Hot Rod smile for some reason. "Sounds like my kind of fun!"

A few of them laugh.

Ella turns to Jazz and says, "And if you and your crew are going to hang out here all the time, then we need to do some upgrades and some training more often with my group alright.'

Upgrades?" Asks Heather.

"Oh you know sweetheart, like what Ella did for us Roughnecks members when we were inducted into the team so we could better blend in biological environments." Replies Vanessa. Biomode functions and possible new alternate modes.

Jazz replies, "S'ok w'me. I don't think the others'll object ya know." And he laughs, thinking about the females that he had heard his team members talking about since they first got to see this hidden base. "So long as they get to spend more time here on their days off, the better for them!"

"Better for you don't you mean Jazz?" Nudges Vanessa into his leg.

Jazz knew to what she was referring to and smiles coyly down at her.

"Well Jazz if that's the case, then I may have to give some of your team mates our version of a pretender shell, the Biomode function that Vanessa mentioned. The ones who are compatible for the technology anyway. I won't touch the Gestalt teams unless they ask to have it done, but the rest should be pretty much ok." She hands Jazz a data pad. "I compiled this a while back. It's a list of everyone on the Autobot roster who is compatible for the conversion. Have a look through the list and let me know what you think?"

Jazz takes the small data pad Ella had taken out from somewhere and reads over the names. "This is pretty much everyone on my team!" He says surprisingly, "Including Grimlock!"

"Only because he has a pretender shell that can be upgraded with Deltronian technology if he wishes it. Anyway you go find everyone at the entrance, they should all be there by now, have a chat to your team before you go and ask them who's in. Then we can start the upgrades at a time when it suits you alright?" Ella answers.

"Yeah sure no worries!" He says as he leaves.

"Well hey, what about me?" Asks Hot Rod.

"What about you." Ella replies amusingly, "You can do it all on your own. You don't need an upgrade when you already have one silly!

Hot Rod smiles then leaves to join Jazz. If he was going to live here at Dragon Valley for a bit, he would need to get some things from Autobot City first. He leaves the rest to themselves.

Peter and Vanessa turn to their four children and Vanessa asks, "So who's up for a picnic in Vancouver?"

"Was that what all the secrecy up on the landing pad was about?" Asks Balthazar. His mother nods

Hailey asks, "Can we bring our mecha?"

"Sure, why not." Comments Peter.

The three mecha in question, Highway, Meanstreak and Ghost Hunter were all listening in and fervently agree that they want to go.

It had been a long time since they had had a family picnic amongst the chaos that was the Dragon Valley Base.

Vanessa had noticed that her eldest had been rather quiet and also noticed her new tattoos, "Those new?" She asks.

Vanessa nodded. There were two western style dragons, one white and one black. Each one starting at her wrists and then entwining itself up each of her arms and finished at her collarbones.

"You know, I'm here almost everyday and still I don't notice these little things that my kids do with themselves. Some Detective I am! You must have gotten that done a while back?"

"Yeah I did and it's ok Mom, I know your busy, you can't be here all the time."

"Ya but you're still suffering from that episode on Nebulon and we haven't had a chance to properly talk about it yet."

"I'll be fine, really."

"Yeah? You don't just go out and get expensive tattoos like that if there's nothing wrong." Vanessa stops talking.

"Mother please!"

"Okay, okay! I'll quit being too caring and overprotective of my favourite little lady!"

"You haven't called me that in years!" Heather says.

"Perhaps I should call you that more often then!" The two females laugh it off and then follow the others.

The group all started to move upstairs to the launch bay where the helicopter that was waiting for them was. Switchblade was the helicopter, she had been back at the base for some medical repairs but was dismissed by Heartia and Stella from the Medical bay and she wanted a time out from the base and this was the perfect opportunity when she had overheard Ella, Vanessa, and Peter talking earlier.

Ella had come up to the launch bay with them to see them off. She was glad that at times like this, a family could still get together and spend some quality time with each other and go out and have fun.

She wasn't sure how much longer it would last, but she would make sure that at least they would be able to spend their time leisurely together before things got much worse and before she had to leave them for parts unknown.

It didn't take too long before they packed the last of the items and Switch' started up her engines. The cover to the launch bay opened for them and then they left for their family picnic.

Ella wasn't able to enjoy the peace for very long as her comms started to buzz. It was Freefall in disguise as a human in New York, at the Summit the United Nations had organised.

*


	31. Chapter 31 Becoming Somewhat Human

*Becoming Somewhat Human*

*

Charr.

"Me Slag no like waiting, me Slag wanna fight 'cons."

"You Slag follow order that me Grimlock give and you Slag wait till me tell you to move." Growled a frustrated Dinobot Commander.

Somewhere in the background Bonecrusher chuckled.

"What you femme find so funny?" Asked Snarl.

"Nothing you would need to worry your precious little mind about my dear!" Smiles Bonecrusher at the smaller mecha dinosaur. Bonecrusher wasn't about to tell Snarl that she had as many problems with the resident Ceratopian mecha of her own team that Grimlock had with his, and she thought it very amusing.

On this occasion though, she had sent part of her team to the other side of the ridge surrounding the citadel on Chaar. Today's visit for them was as much a scouting experience as it was a raid, so they could ascertain the enemy's strength.

It was an idea that Bonecrusher and Nova had come up with, and something that Grimlock had agreed to. He had surprised Bonecrusher with having more understanding and intelligence than he showed in regards to military matters and she was beginning to like it.

At the moment, the teams were split. Five of them were back on the ship, for backup and the rest had gone down into the citadel and were in two different groups. Bonecrusher was on her own with Grimlock and the Dinobots while the rest of her team were either back at the ship or on the other side of the ridge doing their part.

The raptors, Ripclaw and Rapture, each being experts of espionage, they were providing their temporary team leader, Headstrong, with video feedback on their respective locations around the base.

Another member, Handglide was above the citadel, unseen in her stealth mode, surveying the citadel from outside. She was also providing a video feedback for the rest of the team.

This allowed Headstrong to gather information and with the two others with her, Spineback and Spitfire, she was able to plot a course of action that would lead them directly to the retrieval of the Power Matrice, if they were able to accomplish this feat today.

There were plenty of enemy patrols out and about both on land and in the air and they all had to be careful. Bonecrusher thought for sure that the big lumbering Dinobots would give away their position but they didn't. They were hardened from many battles with the Decepticons and wilfully followed all orders their leader gave them despite their size.

Decellion and Galvetron were not in the citadel at the time having returned to the Hive Moon in the Nebulon system, for their own reasons. Another Decepticon, Cyclonus, was currently in charge.

He had organised all the soldiers into position and several were out on duty watching the citadel for any trouble.

Two Decepticons who were outside on patrol near the Dinobots and Bonecrusher were Astrotrain and Blitzwing.

"So you gonna tell me what they did to you while you were captured or what?" Asked the purple and yellow triple changer.

"There's nothing to tell Blitz', nuthin' happened. Up until you guys got me out, they did nuthin' to me." Replied Astrotrain.

Blitzwing stops for a moment before saying something to his compatriot, "Hey, did you hear something?"

"Maybe. Let's check it out."

"Wait." He stops Astrotrain and then radios base, "Blitzwing to Citadel base."

'_Go ahead Blitzwing.'_ Came back the reply.

"We've discovered a possible noise out here on the west side, we are going to investigate."

'_Backup will be on call of required, base out.'_

"Okay, let's go." Says Blitzwing as he moves off with Astrotrain not far behind.

*

It was yet another day at Dragon Valley base. Freefall and a small handful of others were still in New York at the United Nations discussing matters with the new alien visitors to planet earth.

And Jazz had returned with some of his team from Autobot City in response to Ella's proposition of helping advance their own technological standings by allowing each individual who chose to take part, to upgrade their system to Deltronian levels, while still retaining their Cybertronian abilities.

There was a device in a room that was used for this at the base. Three rooms that were pretty much all next door to each other, where it was all connected to. Despite the immense size of each, comparable to human standards they were adequate for the uses of the transformers who were on the base at any given time.

Ella had put forward her idea to Jazz and his team about the possibility of upgrades using Deltronian technology and most had accepted. Due to their individual rosters and work back at their base, they couldn't all come at once to do it. Today was the first round with Jazz and a few others present. Along with some others who were taking a break from the refurbishment at the Ark and came to watch.

Ella was on her own at the moment waiting the arrival of Jazz and his team who were on route to her base of operations.

She wandered next door to the medical bay. Sunstar had opened the connecting doors between all three areas, Medical, Maintenance and Flashdance's Art Studio. The medical bay was in the centre, with the other two on either side. Each was designed to act as separate areas but also as one, with each the size of a football field and at least two stories high, with enough height to accommodate for a large Transformer standing full height. They were indeed immense, and even more so when the compartment doors combining all three areas were open.

Krysta had walked in as she was still sick and was wandering around the base instead of being at home. She had never seen the compartmental doors open before and found Ella to comment this to. "Whoah, this place is like so huge!"

Ella was amused at the way she described it. Krysta had the temperament and language of a Hollywood socialite, but was kind hearted and friendly, due to her inherent programming from both her parents and being one of the very few natural born Bioroids in existence.

Ella remembered the first time she had met Krysta many years ago. She was a child at the time, as Peter and Vanessa had spent some time living and working in Portland running their own Private Detective business. They spent the time there with their youngest child for a time before returning to work at Dragon Valley.

She had made friends with a girl there in her childhood called Alexandra Price, and had again made friends with her when 'Lex's father had moved to Port Angeles to become the Military base's new General and Krysta happened to be a student at the local high school where Alexandra was transferred. They had kept in contact over the years, and were over the moon that they could be in each others company now.

Krysta had invited her friend Alexandra for a visit to the base today and was milling around hinging out with her.

Sunstar was in her Biomode in the medical section of this large room. She was working with the controls of the Biomode Integration Device. It was the device Ella had created based on the technology her natural mother had created so long ago in the Delta system, and she had set this one up here. It was the equivalent of providing an alien other than a human with a techno-organic nanomesh cover to their body. It worked better for any hominid species, but could work for anyone big or small, humanoid or not. It made their body small enough to fit into a human form, so whatever size they were before they could shift their weight, size and shape to fit the Biomode to whatever they needed, depending on their species.

'Rod had been the first to arrive here. He spent most of his time here on the base, but was still living at Autobot City. Optimus had been in contact with Jazz after deliberating on a decision and told both Jazz and Rod that it was beast he stayed at Autobot City for the duration of his assignment there. He wasn't happy with the decision but he accepted it, but still visited Dragon Valley as much as he possibly could.

Ella sat down with him to have a chat while waiting for the others to arrive. She had already received word from the front gate of their arrival and was now only waiting for their elevator to arrive down to their level of the underground base.

Not too long after that, Jazz had waltzed in with some of his team that could be here today. Not all of them had wanted any upgrades and those that didn't stayed behind at Autobot City for their usual duties.

The twins were there but Sunstreaker had only come along because his twin brother Sideswipe was curious about the process, as had Bumblebee. No one else had come.

*

Just as Stella had found the programming protocols for the Biomode program, she found herself bothered by the twins, who had come up onto the platform to investigate out of pure curiosity.

She was a little flustered at having Sunstreaker stand so close to her and ask her questions but her embarrassment was only short lived when she spotted what Sideswipe was doing.

"I wonder what this button does?" The red twin said curiously.

"Do not touch that!" Yelled Sunstar. She quickly got up out of her chair to deal with him then ushered back down off the platform.

"Aww, C'mon, I was just curious!" Reasoned Sideswipe.

"No, you were not. I have heard of your reputation Sideswipe and I will not have you interfering with any of this delicate and very expensive equipment." She sternly replied.

Sideswipe, disheartened, sat down next to wait with Jazz and Bumblebee who were snickering at him quietly.

Sunstar made sure he was settled then she went back up to remove the other twin. He was as tall as her, as tall as Sideswipe was also, but she found his presences a little intimidating. Not for those reasons, but for the fact she had a slight crush on him and found it hard to talk to him at times. But she still had the courage to do so, even if she stammered slightly in doing it. She smiled politely and asked if he would join his brother downstairs. He didn't move straightaway.

She pleaded gracefully, "Please?" And she motioned to where his twin was now sitting, scowling.

He instead glared at her for having the nerve to tell him what to do but then hmphed and moved down the stairs to sit where Sideswipe sat.

Ella had momentarily been called away by Crusade to answer a call in the Communication Centre and left Sunstar and the others to it.

However on the way back, she ran into some members of Peter's crew, who were here on the base for supplies and wanted to see what was going on. They came with her to check it out and found places to watch. Julio, William, and Bryan, as well as Peter and Henry, who were currently in the cargo bay checking the last of Steelwind's load for their next trip.

Ella had found a comfortable spot to stand next to Julio. She admitted she hadn't talked to him much, and thought now would be a good time.

"So how did your family take the news?" She asked.

"They ok, they happy I get out of Rio, Senora, and I'm glad you let me go visit them every once in a while." He replies in his Spanish accent.

"That's ok Julio, happy to help. I know how some of you Spaniards are with being around family, especially one as large as yours! I'll make sure they're taken care of in regards to your family's financial situation alright." She commented. He smiled nervously as she patted him on the shoulder.

This was a new environment for him. In the past he had been an activist for Greenpeace, a protestor against wars and general all around pacifist and human rights protector. He had seen many things in his time and wasn't at all batting any eyelids at what was being presented before him here on the base. Although being very down to Earth, he took it all in his stride as best he could.

He was still somewhat nervous, as what he had seen so far was very different to what he was used to and the new memories being around people like Ella were starting to bring forward in his mind about his past as the Autobot Huffer.

Ella had gotten a verbal call from Sunstar that something was amiss. She left the three humans standing near her and traversed the large stairs built for larger beings to the Biomode Device.

"So what's the problem? Did Sideswipe actually touch something?" Ella smirked in his direction.

"Hey I heard that!" He spoke from his seat downstairs. Jazz snickered next to him and got a poke in the side for his efforts from Sideswipe, as well as by Sunstreaker who was on the other side of him.

"Hey boys, no fair double teamin'!" Said a surprised Jazz still laughing.

Ella smiled and turned her attention back to the console in front of Sunstar and they both began to work on the problem together.

*

Sunstar was one of the very few who had seen video holograms of Ella's deceased husband. And she knew that his spitting image had been reborn in the form of Hot Rod, or Rodimus as he was often calling himself on occasion.

She also knew that often Ella had some problems with it as she had already tried to keep herself away from him, but it wasn't working very well. Ella was thinking about this as she helped Sunstar to fix a bug in the Biomode program and get it operational.

She thought back to the day she first taught him how to switch into a human looking and sized alternate mode and she remembered what she saw before her then. He was very nearly Rodine's spitting image.

She remembered him asking if there had been something wrong with his face, or if he had done something drastically wrong as she was staring agape at him. She had started to giggle at his remark, the momentary look of surprise on her face had faded but she had to wonder to herself. Standing before her then was this handsome mech with chiselled features, and it made her aghast at first, but then smile. She couldn't help herself. Hot Rod was more like Rodine in just personality, he had his devil may care good looks also.

But even before then, she had wondered about it since she had first seen him that day her team was in New York and had then gotten her answer that day he first changed.

She had thought to herself about how fond she had become of Hot Rod's company, as he quite often dropped into the base for no reason just to hang around and talk. She had just thought it was him trying to justify what had happened on Papillon before when she was apparently injured and she had told him more than once that there was no need to feel guilty about anything, that everything had to happen for a reason. But he had been stubborn and continued to hang around despite being told it wasn't his fault.

But she wasn't inclined to tell anyone just yet was that he was more than just her than that. He had also at various times been other people to her, brother, son, and father also, but in her particular lifetime he had been her husband, none knew yet that she actually shared the same soul spark as the one everyone knew as Elita One, at least not yet. She didn't even know how Optimus would take that information if and when the time ever came to reveal that secret.

When she and Sunstar had finished and told everyone they would soon start, Jazz was the first one to start asking questions.

"So how we gonna do this? We gonna just get an upgrade for our Pretender shells or what?"

"You and Bumblebee will, yes. For the others it will take a little more time as the program will have to be written from scratch. For you two, it will take all the information you have in your systems about your relative Pretender shells and work on it from there." Replied Ella. "It will most likely upgrade your current alternate modes also, so don't be surprised if you get a new one out of it."

"Don't worry about it Jazz, it'll be fine." Comments Hot Rod nonchalantly.

"No problem!" Exclaims a happy go lucky white mech as he is directed to stand in the chamber and waves to everyone as it closes and starts to work.

But he came out unclothed.

"Oh dear." Exclaimed Sunstar. Ella and Sunstar looked at each other and realised they had forgotten to tell Jazz about one little thing. The outer skin of the new Biomode armour or the skin, whatever was active at the time, could convert to a cloth covering and appear as if the individual was wearing clothes.

Over to one side of the room watching, some of the femmes from the Roughnecks team had come to see what was going on in between their duties. One was Vanguard, she was snickering.

Jazz curious asks her, "What's so funny?"

Still laughing, she says, "Activate your Biomode armour!"

Jazz looks down at himself as he had yet to look and suddenly feels very exposed realising he is in what the humans would call a birthday suit. He doesn't blush but just smiles, "So how'm I s'posed ta do that?"

Ella answers instead, "Think it, say it, whatever, just do that and you should have some clothes, in whatever style you want." Vanguard was still snickering.

Hot Rod having already learnt how to do it previously, offers his advice, "Like this!" He demonstrates and as he closes his human eyes and appears to concentrate, his clothes change from one outfit to another.

Jazz smirks and says, "Cool! Ya mean like this?" He doesn't close his eyes, but his dark skin shifts to accommodate for his new fashionable outfit, which is very reminiscent of his old Porsche 935 paint job, along with an appearance that is Creole in form and accent

"Yeah, something like that." Comments Vanguard. "Nice to see you still have no shame Mister Cool, wandering around like you got your struts off in front of everyone! Still the view I got wasn't a waste!"

Jazz walks down from the platform and right up to Vanguard who had just switched from her robot mode to her Biomode to talk to him, "I aim ta please!" He bows in front of her then sits himself down next to her on a human sized seat with some of the others who were watching.

Jazz's actions cause Vanessa to burst out laughing again, and when he has seated himself down next to her, she grabs him in a playful headlock that gets him off balance.

Jazz replies playfully, "Help I'm bein' mauled by a femme over here!"  
Sound Track, who was also present, shifted to her own Biomode to sit with Vanessa who was now seated next to Jazz on some human sized seats, comments to Jazz, "Ya'll are a natural at this! Someone mahght think ya'll were human already!"

Ella having overheard her statement replies, "He got it even quicker than what you did Van' way back when!"

"Yeah but when we made them way back when, we didn't have the Bio armour remember? We added that into the nano program about a century ago. You thought it was funny as the pits that I couldn't dress myself! I had to learn it the hard way, he didn't." She replies jokingly. Ella and a few of the other Roughnecks join Vanessa in the amusement of the moment.

Sunstreaker had been watching the scene curiously and cuts in with his own thoughts on the matter after seeing how Jazz's new human form had turned out. He addresses his concerns to Ella who had her back to Sunstar behind her right now. "So how does the machine know how to do the design of the form? Do we choose it or what?"

Ella figured he'd ask sooner or later considering how he was at times with his looks. "The machine goes over what's in your head Sunstreaker and then formulates a design based on that as well as something relative to your function and the form you have now."

"While I'm not keen on having that machine loose in my head, at least I can still look as beautiful as I do now, even if I am human." He smirks.

Sideswipe snorts next to his brother and makes a rude comments and a fight breaks out between them. Ella instead of doing anything just lets the two siblings work it out on their own after she mentions to Jazz to let them go at it. The delicate equipment was up on a platformed area so there was an unlikely chance the two brothers rolling around could damage it.

Bumblebee was called up next. He gave the two rolling Lamborghini's a wide berth as he ascended the stairs for his turn.

Sunstar sighs and it catches Ella's attention.

"Something wrong?" She asks.

"I am alright for now. I have been working long hours to get this machine ready and I am feeling the exhaustion now."

"Well after I'm done setting this up, you can go, you don't have to stay until 'Bee is finished. I'll finish without you and get one of the others to help me out."

Sunstar would have objected, but she knew Ella was taking her health into consideration and so she accepted it, "As you wish." She stated calmly.

While Sunstar turns back to the console and shuts the chamber for Bumblebee, Ella turns her attention to some of Peter's team that were now talking with Jazz down below.

She looks over at Henry, who had joined the other three.

Sunstar shifts her form to Stella and grabs a card from the deck where Ella had been. She wanders down to give it to Jazz.

He reads it over. It is a security card for the Dragon Valley base. "Jayce Zederman?" He reads, "So what's this for?"

"It's an ID card for our base as well as all our connected businesses around the planet." Calls out Ella from up above. "As a human looking individual, you can also use that as a normal ID card, the microchip shows a hologram of who you are too."

Jazz, curious, presses the chip and a hologram of his Cybertronian mecha self appears and then transforms into a white Porsche, not his old mode but a new Carrara GT3. "Hey s'that my new alternate mode?"

"Yeah it is. And also, if you want to add any program, for example downloads to better your social status and blend easier as humans, you can access the library and download them straight into your cerebral mainframe ok."

"No probs' Ella!" He calls out. Vanessa and Desonia, take him over to one of the side wall consoles to show him what Ella was talking about.

This talk had gotten Sideswipe's attention long enough for him to stop fighting his brother and go over and see what they were doing.

Sunstreaker still being on the floor, got up and went and found himself another console he could sit at and found something to do, momentarily peeling himself away as he saw Stella leave.

"Where's she going?" He asked the blue haired femme next to Jazz, Stella's mother.

Desonia answered, "Probably her quarters ya'll, she's been working a heap of ovahtahme lately an' does need rest."

Sunstreaker didn't reply, he just turned his attention back to the computer in front of him, and his twin soon joined him.

It wasn't long before Bumblebee was ready to show off his new self also.

Jazz peeled himself away from the consoles long enough to take the card out of Bumblebee's hand and see what was on it, "Benjamin Larraby."

"Weird name?" Commented Sideswipe, "So Bro' what you think we'll get?"

"Probably something like Mister Buttwipe for you!"

"Or Golden Girl for you, pretty boy." Retorted Sideswipe.

"Did you just call me a femme?" Snarled Sunstreaker.

"Yeah I did, what of it?"

Ella sighed as yet again the twins got into another fight. "Well at least my two only yell and swear at each other!"

Jazz had a keen interest in Bumblebee's new alternate mode and pressed his human fingers to the chip that projected the hologram. "Whoah, very nice!" Exclaimed Jazz.

The twins look up for a moment from their fist fight to see. "Moving up in the world eh Bee? That _is_ a nice ride!" Comments Sideswipe, "Careful now Sunny! He'll be getting all the femmes before you can now!"

"We'll see about that." Grumbled a sour faced yellow Lamborghini robot as he got himself up off the floor. He wasn't going to admit that he was slightly jealous of the fact that Bumblebee, instead of getting a new Beetle car mode like he thought the small minibot would, had instead had gotten a flash looking black and yellow Chevrolet Camaro, that he knew was made in the last decade.

Ella finalises the program and invites the twins for their turn. "So who's next?" She waits for a while then asks, "So what's the problem guys? You don't want a new body form?"

Sunstreaker answers, "I look much better like this, that's why."

"That form is a bit old Sunstreaker. Are you telling me you don't want to get a new alt mode to keep up with Jazz and Bumblebee and have them steal all the femmes from you?" She says playfully.

"I'm right to go, just waiting for Sunny boy here to get out my way so I can get up the stairs." Comments Sideswipe.

Ella asks the twins, "So how about it guys, you want to try something new? Or are you too scared?" She tilts her head in their direction knowing full well that either one or both would take the bait on that comment.

Sideswipe replies, "Who says we're scared?"

And Sunstreaker adds, "I'm not afraid of anything!"

"Well then ya'll bettah step up and see what masterpieces we can make o' ya'll then." Comments an impatient Desonia from the sidelines. "Well ya'll, who's goin' first now?"

Sunstreaker pushes Sideswipe forward, "You first dirtbot!"

Sideswipe turns to go and hit his brother, "Hey stop callin' me that and don't get so pushy. Why do I have to go first anyway?"

"Because if they stuff up and make you an ugly human then I won't have to get anything but a new alternate mode stupid."

"Someone might think you were afraid to go first?" Sideswipe smiles slyly at his brother.

Sunstreaker raises a brow, "Fine, I'll go first, but it just proves that you're the one who's afraid!"

He steps up to the chamber Ella shows him and steps inside and she closes the doors on him.

*

In New York, preparations are proceeding apace for the Alliance summit in the United Nations building.

Over the last 20 years, humanity in general had grown accustomed to having the Transformers around as well as some other alien races. And so did not bat an eyelid when they were approached by representatives of Earth who wanted to bring forward the case for the Alliance.

Previously, the Autobots, under the leadership of Rodimus Prime, they had tried to establish a lasting peace accord with several planets from solar systems that were close to Earth and to Cybertron. Some of these planets were also members of the Alliance, but of the outer territories. The inner territories themselves having possession of the ancient planetary computer systems built by ancestors of the Bioroid race, the Angellion. None of that species would be present at the summit as they were long thought extinct. But others would be there.

The Alliance Council had sent along various representatives of some of the races from both their inner and outer territories, these also included some of the Alliances best soldiers. Airbourne, a female transformer from the Aquila system, and team leader of one of the Alpha Central Air Command units.

Team leader of another aerial unit stationed on Earth was Freefall, also a female transformer, one of Ella's agents, and also a reformatted Bioroid and a former Dominion soldier that Ella had the pleasure of rehabilitating almost one million Earth years ago.

And also representatives from Autobase, including Hound, Tracks and Blaster; and the representatives Ella had sent, Carlita Tempani, her femme transformer partner Tempest and her two young male Transformer charges, as well as Freeway and Landslide.

Having come together, the Autobots who really didn't want to be in on the summit decided to volunteer for a security detail headed by Ultra Magnus and his team, who had flown in for the summit from Cybertron at the request of Optimus Prime, who would soon be arriving on Earth himself to take part in the summit.

Adam Drake was also a part of the festivities, as were several other companies who had a vested interest in possible ventures the Alliance may have to offer for them.

And of course there was a heavy human Military presence. The President, who had approved the use of the new mecha units that were built at Port Angeles, had quickly had them approved for use and shipped to New York to be used at the summit for extra protection for the delegates, local, international and interspacial, that would of course be attending.

The Summit itself would be opening in a few days to the eyes and ears of the Human populace of Earth; right now they were still preparing the event.

*


	32. Chapter 32 A New Order Of Business

*A New Order Of Business*

*

In the Citadel on Charr, the raptors, Rapture and Ripclaw had been sighted and were causing an uproar, luring their prey away from their team mates.

This had allowed Headstrong, Spitfire and Spineback the chance to get close to the citadel and find a way in.

The three Dinosaurers spot an entry but it is heavily guarded.

Decepticons inside the base get the idea that the raptors were just a diversionary tactic to draw attention away from the side gates of the citadel so another team could get in, but this realisation was too late in coming. By then Headstrong and her companions had fought their way past the party of guards where they had found an entry and had gotten into the citadel.

The three Dinosaurers were able to evade most of the Decepticon patrols that had been alerted to their presence for a time before the sheer numbers of the soldiers forced the three to run and hide instead of fight.

And at this point, this was where the Dinobots decided to come traipsing through the same entry that Headstrong had.

With her two companions running a diversion, Headstrong was able to get her bearings and figure out where she was. It was a room full of scientific equipment. And it was lucky for her that one of the devices she was looking for was out on one of the tables. She thought that they must be working experiments on the device, otherwise Decellion would never have allowed it out of her site, _'Come te think o'it?'_ She thought, _'I have'n seen that dastardly lass anywhere yet, she'd be here gloatin' by now?'_

She grabbed the Matrice on the table, rushed past the scientist unawares who was just as surprised at her appearance as he was at there being an intruder and then left to join Spineback and Spitfire who had just returned to her side.

Headstrong thought their luck was running good for a while as they came across no opposition from any Destrons or Decepticons till she and the others got to the exit point. She wanted nothing more than to go back and join her comrades, as it was her nature to fight, but thought better of it as she knew this mission today was about retrieving a Matrice, and they had done that, too easily though, she thought. Now all she had to do was make it back to their ship in one piece before anyone realised the Matrice was gone and that she had it.

The Dinobots were still taking the attention of the enemy soldiers on the base.

Bonecrusher was still with them that she had found out when she had contacted her appointed team leader over her comms to let her know about her partial success. She had been given orders to return to the ship and not under any circumstance stop for any reason.

The fact that part of the team had utilised a diversionary tactic to keep the attention of the enemy, was what Headstrong had been banking on for her escape.

However she did keep her optics and audios open for any sign of trouble while making her way back to the ship where Nova and some others were still waiting.

She and her two companions were just entering a ravine to make their way to the ship when they were found out.

There were only two of them and Spitfire had elected to stay behind and deal with them. His acid spit would have been more than enough to melt some weapons at close range. He would have preferred to show off his intellectual expertise but they hadn't the time.

Another group of the enemy crossed Headstrong and Spineback's path and blocked them off from the ship. She scolded herself, thinking that the other enemy soldiers had been too preoccupied by the Dinobots to notice them, when in fact they had come outside to stop any escape by the Dinobots or Dinosaurers.

The battle between the others at the base had finally caught up to them and despite Grimlock's best efforts he couldn't get out front to show off as Bonecrusher was giving him a run for his fuel in terms of battle prowess.

The group amalgamated but then spilt up again as the enemy soldiers had started to converge on them.

Slippery as they were, the raptor siblings had managed to get out of the citadel without a scratch, after rushing in after Headstrong and her lot, causing as much internal damage to the base as they could. They ran off with minimal damage to their dinosaur chassis' and headed straight for their hidden ship.

The others were not so lucky. Spitfire had rushed into the wrong area on his way back to join the group and in his egotistical folly, was shot down. Headstrong who had been close by was able to save him from being terminated and carried him out the rest of the way amidst the laser fire. Which hardly affected her tough armour, she actually welcomed it.

Spineback was manoeuvring himself to allow his large dinosaur mode's spined back fin to take all the laser fire he could handle. It allowed him to draw energy from the absorbed laser fire and shoot back at the Decepticons through his weapons, especially the ones who were standing in his way of getting to the ship. He was the one that was now carrying the Power Matrice, having had Headstrong place it in an empty compartment inside him to carry back to the ship, while the others, thinking she still had it, diverted their attention to her.

Bonecrusher, having seen Spitfire's condition, radioed back for help as they were not too far away from the ship now.

Once he was safely out of the way, being taken by another team member back to the ship, Bones' radioed Hand Glide above to check on her progress. That was when she found out about the situation. There was a large assault force of enemy soldiers heading towards her and the Dinobots.

She was able to use her comms to get two others of her team, Whiplash and Ram Raid, to meet her however close to her position they could get.

Bonecrusher was confident they would get off Charr in one piece but just in case, she issued a widespread alert to any Autobots that might be patrolling in space in the area to come and provide assistance.

*

Alone in her quarters, Sunstar had tried to offline and recharge in order to rest but was still restless. She was usually very aware of things that bothered her emotionally and dealt with them straight away, but this time she wasn't even the slightest bit sure of what it was.

She had gotten up from her rest cycle and decided to do some ballet dance practice to help her think until she was able to properly shut down again for a sleep mode. She made her way down to the recreation rooms on the residential levels and set herself up for a practice.

While she became lost in the classical music that was playing, she was unaware of a visitor that had come to watch her. He was a youthful Italian male with long blonde and black hair, with a piercing warrior's gaze.

On the way to this room, Sunstreaker had revelled in all the hoops and hollers he had gotten from some of the human sized female residents and had smirked to himself, but he hadn't stayed to chat. He had come to find Stella. He had originally gone to her quarters but had instead decided to go down a different hallway and by accident had discovered her presence in this dance practice room.

He was not a fan of dancing of any kind, but he did have to agree that Stella made it look good, and it kept him enthralled for some time watching her perform. He also noticed that she was accomplished enough to practice with her eyes closed.

She was busily dancing away and haphazardly collided with Sunstreaker who had moved into the room to get a better view of her movements.

She felt she must have been very tired if she had not noticed anyone enter the room, but then this youth moved ever so quietly and deliberately with his step when he helped her to her feet again and over to the nearest bench to sit down. And then it clicked, she knew that strut.

"Sunstreaker? Is that you?" She asked.

He could do nothing but smile as he saw her blush and turn away at realising it was him.

She had found his new human form very attractive to her, just as much or even more so than his mecha form was, and it embarrassed her.

He changed his verbal stance when she started to readjust the straps on her ballet shoes. "That was uh...an interesting display you put on..." He said, unsure of what it was she was really doing.

"It is called Ballet." She stated quietly as she picked up on his curiosity. "Perhaps I can teach you a few steps? I certainly find that it helps me with my martial arts training a little."

He couldn't help but scoff, _'How could dance steps help martial arts combat?'_ He thought. But then he was curious, willing to at least spend some time with this femme who had captured his attention. "Perhaps you could show me?" He said as he got up and put his hand out to hers.

She smiled at him and then took two swords out from her subspace and grinned devilishly, "I take it that you do know a fair amount of swordsmanship?"

Sunstreaker casually tossed the sword she had given him between his hands to get the feel of its weight and then looked back at her, "Of course I do!" He stated, being quite proud of his armed combat skills.

"Then let us see how you fare!" She commented jovially.

'_As if she has any chance of besting me even in mock combat!'_ He thought to himself. But as she danced around all his strikes he began to change his mind about what she had said about the dancing being helpful with martial arts and began to pay more attention to how she moved.

At the door to the rec room, Jazz and Sound Track, her in her Biomode, and Jazz in his new upgraded Pretender shell, were watching silently.

"Looks like Sunny has made a new friend!" Muses Jazz.

Desonia didn't smile but she looked at Jazz when he said it, then over in the direction of the two practising their swordsmanship. _'Ah'll be watchin' ya'll t'make sure ya'll treat her rahght Sunstreaker.' _Thought Desonia to herself.

Sideswipe and Bumblebee also showed up at the door, both in their new Biomodes as Jazz was.

Jazz had made the walk up here to find where Sunstreaker had wandered off to so they could make their trip back to Autobot City. Sound Track had just come along to keep him company, while Bumblebee and Sideswipe chatted with each other some distance behind them.

"C'mon Sunny, finish it up, we're goin' home now." Called out Jazz.

Sunstreaker looked at Jazz, clearly annoyed his time with Stella was cut short, as he was enjoying himself. He looked back at her and tossed her the sword she had given him.

He turned and headed out the door with Jazz and the others to the exit.

Desonia came into the room to join her daughter. Stella subspaced the two swords, turned off the music and sat down on the couch where her mother was relaxing, very laid back. They looked at each other silently for a moment and then Stella lay down next to her.

Desonia noted it had been a while since her daughter had even wanted to spend any quiet time with her and appreciated the company and their moment. She secretly smiled to herself as she heard that Stella was now completely asleep, having gotten whatever was bothering her out of her system and letting herself be rocked to sleep by her mother.

*

Optimus Prime had noticed that the Decepticons on Charr had been rather quiet lately and he had grown suspicious of the silence.

On Nebulon, the Wreckers were bored. They had recently received a call from Optimus Prime to go to Earth and attend to Ultra Magnus, but were also asked to fly by Charr and check on things there and report back.

Things had been quiet on Nebulon since the Wreckers had helped bring in some of the Decepticon soldiers there. Other teams however were still heavily engaged in a fight with the renegade Decepticons there. As much as the Wrecker s wanted to stay, they would follow orders and leave.

They also had Arcee and Blurr with them, and were travelling in an old friend by the name of Skylinx.

Amongst Springer's group were Roadbuster, Broadside, Whirl, Top Spin, Twin Twist and Sandstorm. While Skylinx was in control of the flying, some were chatting amongst themselves listening to each others war stories, while Springer was up front in the cockpit with Arcee and Blurr.

Springer noticed the buzzing console first.

Skylinx told them, "It might be prudent of me to tell you of a radio beacon in the area?"

Twin Twist and Roadbuster overhear and walk up to the cockpit out of curiosity. Roadbuster asks, "So do we go in and rescue them? Or dare I ask fight?"

Blurr replies very quickly in his customary super speed verbal pace, "It may be a Decepticon trap because it's on Charr and we know that only Decepticons live on Charr."

Springer thought to himself for a moment and then decided, "Skylinx, set course around to the side of the planet where the signal originated from and we'll see what we are dealing with here."

"We will be there post haste, as the planet is not too far away now; my highly conditioned thrusters will get us there in no time."

"So you keep telling us!" Sandstorm retorted the Skylinx's last comment in jest.  
Skylinx ignored the comment and then sets course for Charr and comes around on the battle scene down below. He enters the planets atmosphere and watches from afar as per the orders of Springer and then tells him, "With my superior scanners, I can see, that it is a group of what appears to be Dinobots!" He exclaims.

"But I thought the Dinobots were on Earth? What are they doing here?" Asks Arcee.

I thought they were still back on Nebulon?" Queries Twin Twist.

"Does it really matter?" Replies Broadside.

The rest of them were viewing the main screen, images being patched through from Skylinx's visual receptors. It was a scene of mayhem. Springer counted approximately thirteen Dinobots fighting against nearly two dozen or more Decepticon soldiers that were trying to subdue them.

"Most don't look like any Dinobots we know?" Says Broadside.

"Whether those ones are Dinobots or not, they're under heavy fire from that lot of Decepti-Bozo's led by Blitzwing!" Points out Topspin. "And they need our help!"

They all turn to Springer who was slightly behind the group. "Let's go." Is all he utters. Skylinx lands and all nine of them file out to assist the mecha dinosaurs.

*

Several days later at the local high school, Krysta had finally returned to school from being sick. What she had neglected to tell any of her friends was that she was having problems with her biological form. And being that she was who she was and her parents were who they were, Heartia had convinced her parents to take her out of school and attend to medical matters before sending her back, in order to keep her genetics secret.

But some of her friends did know why she was absent for so long.

She was grateful for the support she received from her friends, well, the ones who did know about her condition anyway. The ones that didn't amongst the group, just wished her healthy again and welcomed her back when she returned to school later.

She had been in Port Angeles for some time and had been to school with a few of them for some years. But as was usual with her and her friends, she chose who she interacted with very carefully. She was very careful not to let her condition show, as she was already stronger and faster than most humans, having inherited her mother's super strength and speed.

Today she was studying in class in the main library along with some of her other classmates, one of them named Randal Newton. And she did not like him, not at all, barely anyone did, but he did however hang out with the other group of kids that always teased and bullied Laura and their group. And she was always suspicious of him. He had already gotten the reputation of finding out people's secrets and then advertising them for the whole school to hear, he blackmailed and manipulated anyone and everyone who he could.

She had noticed that he had a tendency to watch everyone and he was quite often like some kind of ninja who disappeared and reappeared at will. She never felt quite safe around him. Especially since she had secrets she didn't want anyone outside of her group of friends to know about.

Elsewhere in the school, Laura, Christine and Ryan were in class with the new Head Science Teacher. They had discovered oh so quickly that she wasn't as lenient as the teacher they had last year. For the last few weeks since school had resumed, all they got to do in class was to do the work that they were supposed to, no goofing off, no games, no phones or bad language or it was instant detention.

Laura had commented on more than one occasion that the class felt more like a prison than a school in Professor Mason's class. Though the three were eagerly awaiting the end of the class, as it was almost lunchtime.

Elsewhere on the school grounds, near the bulletin board outside the Principals office, someone was putting up a notice. It was for an advanced class for the local University, inviting high school students to apply for and attend special extra classes at the University to gain a higher standing at University should they wish to go to the local establishment.

But what it was really about was a special class for Adam Drake to determine who he could use as pilots for his mecha units. The ones he had built and kept for himself that were hidden under the University, not the ones he had built for the Military.

The University, while it had a wide range of faculties, prided itself on the diversity of its subjects and also its students and this was something Adam was going to use to his advantage, seeing as how he was one of the major funding agents for the college.

It took in students not just from all over the States, but from all over the world. It was indeed a world class facility made possible by generous donations from the Drake Corporation with all the latest technology, and in some cases advanced technology not yet out on the streets as Adam quite often donated some of his projects for educational purposes.

Adam was there today at the building site of the new facilities that were being erected on the University campus to house the secret Project Messiah that he was working on to oversee a few things, while disguising his visit to look at the new wing was being constructed with money he had donated.

Whether or not the Summit that Adam was attending in New York tomorrow was successful, the project would still go on regardless, as Earth did need its own defence against the Dominion, militarised or not. And he knew he could provide a better service to the Earth than the US Military could.

When he stood with the University Dean and told him he was satisfied with the construction of the new educational wing and how his donations were being spent, he called his two hired bodyguards, Taylor Carson and Skylar Warren, and ushered them and himself into his Limo and left for the airport to New York.

Back at the high school, class was out for lunchtime and Laura and the group met up in their usual spot.

Lex didn't usually hang with the group at school at this time as she was generally busy with her extracurricular activities. She was usually gone by now as she had no classes after lunch, but today she decided to have a rest from her activities and hang around with them.

As it was Friday and they had the weekend off, they were all looking forward to their Saturday night Halloween Party tomorrow at their usual hangout in town, the club called 'Mechisma'.

They were all happy about the part where someone from their 'arch enemy' group had discovered they were friends with the owners of the most prestigious clubs in town that was a 'members only' attendance when the club was open, but allowed for anyone when it was open as a restaurant, and the kids from the other group couldn't attend unless their parents were members, but they weren't.

Ryan hadn't joined the group straight away as he had had to go to the Principal's office to collect something his grandmother left him for his health. And then he came rushing over to the group in their sit down in the grove of trees near the student car park.

He was out of breath but managed to tell them that there was a notice in the office noticeboard about special classes to be held at the University for a range of students who studied any and all subjects and all were welcome to apply to fill the positions.

When most of their group had arrived at the notice board to see for themselves, 'they' were there, the other group.

"What! You lot don't honestly think that you could even hope to apply for a University level course that you aren't even qualified to do, do you?" Sneered Ian Holmes, the head of this little gang of snotty students.

Christine was reading the list of the notice as he was talking, and confidently retorted, "Well it says right there that anyone and everyone is welcome to apply, and we are going to do just that."

Ian annoyed at being upstaged, verbally retaliates, "Well then good luck, because you won't get in anyway. None of you are in the same league as us and would never measure up to the stringent entry exams done by the University and their courses." Ian stated this confidently as he was one high school student, through his father's influence had been granted the opportunity to do an extracurricular course at the University himself.

Laura couldn't help but snicker. She had been talking to Ella on the phone that morning and found out that Adam would be releasing something soon to do with the University, she just didn't expect it to have anything to do with her high school. She knew it had to do with Adam's mecha project, even if Ian and his father did not, but she supposed Ian's father would try and find out about it anyway if he suspected what Adam was doing.

"What do you think is so funny?" Sneered Ian.

Laura calmly replied, "You do know that the University won't be doing any entrance tests for this, right? It's a privately run course."

"And what makes you think I'd listen to your lies you little insect freak! I'm going to get into that course and so are all my friends, not only will there not be any room for any of you but they won't even want any pathetic losers like you there so don't bother trying at all." He walks off in a huff, upset, clearly wondering if indeed his father had been replaced but not showing it.

His posse followed him not too far behind and it allowed Laura and her friends' to laugh about how they had quickly exited.

After Laura, Christine and Ryan had signed up and left the others to it, they went off to a secluded spot outside to chat for a bit.

"So has it got anything to do with what Ella's doing, anything mech related?" Asked Ryan.

He took it as a yes when Laura smiled.

Christine grinned ear to ear at the news.

Laura did not have the chance to explain more right now as the others had turned up. She wanted the others to find out when the course started, if they were accepted that is, but she had a feeling they all would anyhow.

*

After helping to get the Dinosaurers and the Dinobots back onto their ship and out of Charr's system, the Wreckers, accompanied by Skylinx, made their way to Earth as per the request of Ultra Magnus, orders they had received through Optimus on Cybertron.

Ultra Magnus eagerly awaited their arrival in New York. He and Kup had already set up a security perimeter, but now only needed the Wreckers to implement that security perimeter.

It would not give the team time to prepare but most of them would adapt to the change at short notice. He had made sure that maps, potential risk areas and escape routes had been downloaded into all their data devices for this particular occasion.

Ultra Magnus wasn't very fond of political debates but did what he had to when it came to representation for his own species, especially on Earth where they were already familiar with his faceplate. And he had agreed to be Optimus Prime's representative as his Commander was still busy on Cybertron dealing with attacks by the Dominion now.

He was also glad he had Kup at least. The old mech always had words to say to stop him from being nervous. He wasn't looking forward to giving his speech on behalf of Cybertron tomorrow.

When the Wreckers had arrived, they filled Ultra Magnus in on their little adventure on Charr and the group they had met there.

Up until now, Ultra Magnus had only known about the Dinosaurer's leader Bonecrusher as she had been mentioned in a mission report back on Cybertron that he had recently read. The Wreckers had been able to discover that Bonecrusher had a team of a dozen mechs and femmes under her command, all sporting alternate modes like their team, the Dinobots.

It seemed, from the information the Wreckers gave him, that Bones' team was significantly more intelligent, but no less brutal than the Dinobots were, which made them more dangerous, he was glad then that Bonecrusher and her team were on their side.

*

Once they were free of the planet and also of the Wreckers communication systems, Nova sent word to Earth about their little victory.

They did not know however, which Matrice it was that they had pilfered from the Citadel as yet, but they did know that it wasn't Sound Track's charge.

Ella had relayed word that she was grateful about their find and asked them to keep it somewhere safe. Nova did that and subspaced it within her systems to protect it.

For some time Nova had taken Bonecrusher and also Grimlock aside to discuss And their next plan of action. Nova didn't much like Grimlock, but soon found that his appearance belied the intelligence he had hidden within, especially when it came to making decisions and battle plans.

Right now the Decepticon's on Charr would be seething at the loss, and would be troubled by what they would have to tell Galvetron when he and Decellion returned from the Nebulon system.

*

On Charr several soldiers had been badly wounded in the battle against the Dinosaurers and the rescuing Autobots.

One amongst them was Soundwave. He had returned to Charr on orders from Galvetron to deliver information about the Dominion and also about Shockwave's activities. He did not disappoint Galvatron and was asked to stay in order to conduct another mission for his master.

While Decellion had seethed at the loss of one her Matrices, she took it out on the scientists who were studying it and outright blamed them for their incompetence.

Galvatron was a little more subtle but was quiet about voicing the incompetence of his own soldiers, especially since he would now have to get his number one spy fixed and also being he was still on the Hive moon base.

Soundwave had been damaged enough to warrant a complete rebuild, and Since the mission that Galvatron was sending him on was to Earth again, he asked the Constructicon Hook to encode his transformational mode with an Earth style jet mode.

Being that the body shell was pretty much beyond repair, Hook rebuilt Soundwave from the ground up into a dark blue Earth jet called a Blackbird SR-71.

When Soundwave had awoken again after his surgery and saw his new alternate mode, he did not show any emotion over it as he generally never did.

He had also noticed that in his programming, his cassettes had all been reformatted. They had received significant damage during the battle also.

The ones who previously had Earth like animal modes, Beastbox the Gorilla, Laserbeak and Buzzsaw the Vultures, Slugfest the Stegosaurus, Ravage the Panther, Overkill the Tyrannosaur, Ratbat the Bat and Sqawktalk the Falcon, now all had somewhat larger, more detailed and less compact forms. They no longer had to transform into cassettes and so were able to utilise a humanoid and a secondary form like a Micromaster due to their size to transform between for battle.

Rumble and Frenzy however just stayed as they were, no longer having their cassette modes either but still keeping their humanoid forms and now became Soundwave's primary assistants when in his jet mode.

He loaded everyone up and took off for Earth. When he became settled and let his minions talk amongst themselves, he went over his mission data for Earth. He was to go ahead and gain entry to Ella's base and then allow a following group entry when they arrived at Dragon Valley.

Now that Decellion knew the base was there after having it hidden from her for so long, she had convinced Galvatron that the place had hidden resources and fuel that they could raid and make the place their own.

Galvatron liked the idea. Being that he had gone over as much of the floor plans and information as he could that Soundwave had given him from before, he fully intended to invade this base and take it over for his own as it would serve him as a point with which he could take over Earth and those pathetic humans, as well as eradicate the Autobots still stationed on the planet.

*


	33. Chapter 33 Visions Of The Past

*Visions Of The Past*

*

On the Hive Moon Galvetron was consulting with Scorponok on the creation of new technologies. He had conversed with Decellion about the Bioroids, her original form and species, and their ability to shape shift, which was much more advanced than the Transformers and their Pretender technology. Scorponok had chosen to try and implement some kind of program where he could add this technology to Transformer mainframes and potentially open doors for Decepticons who would be able to shape shift like the Bioroids.

Due to the fact Decellion had no access to the archives in the Delta system; she had used what she knew about her own physiology and shape shifting skills. They had adapted it into a form of technology that when used, all those Decepticons with Pretender shells could be upgraded using this variation. Or those that were compatible with this new technology could be converted from scratch.

Galvetron had not been happy with the discussion at first, but he did see the logic in it. For his soldiers to be able to change their appearance at will to whatever they wished would be advantageous for this war, and it would also fool any Autobots who came across them, with their appearances hidden underneath another form.

It would also help hide his soldiers on Earth if they were able to disguise themselves as humans. He hated the disgusting creatures but if he was going to surprise the Autobots with an attack, it would be an option for his soldiers to learn how to shape shift into a human looking form of disguise. And that is where he got an idea for Soundwave to go to Earth and accomplish a mission for him.

He eventually allowed Decellion and Scorponok to continue with their project. But then Decellion returned to Charr to investigate who would be compatible for the program and perform conversions on the other Decepticon soldiers back at the Citadel, while Galvetron stayed on the Hive moon to oversee Scorponok's work.

Galvetron however was not happy to deal with a situation that had occurred back at his citadel. During their absence there had been an attack by a group of enemy mechs. He chided the ones responsible for Soundwave's drastic injuries, demanding that Hook along with the other Constructicons, who were still there, as well as Decellion, who had arrived back there shortly beforehand, rebuild Soundwave immediately.

Decellion of course made use of her knowledge of mecha technology and built new programs into Soundwave's system when Hook was rebuilding his body, that would serve him for the mission Galvetron would send him to Earth for.

The idea that Decellion had and had presented to Galvetron was one of infiltration of the base Soundwave had been incarcerated in previously. Several of the soldiers on the Charr base presently were compatible with her technology and Galvetron gave the go ahead to have them adapted for this new technology and then they would follow Soundwave to Earth in order to infiltrate the Dragon Valley Base after he arrived there.

Decellion's other idea was thus, when she was on Earth millions of their years ago she hadn't even gotten close to getting onto the base as there was too much resistance. She was so close way back when, to getting hold of one of the Core computers and would've broken through the last vestiges of the resistance if only Ella and her team had not shown up when they did. Now she would have a chance to make that information definite or not.

She, while thinking about the past, came across other memories. Something that had disturbed her about Ella's mecha form though. Thirty million years ago when she was fighting in the wars around Sigma Prime against the Bioroids, she distinctly remembered destroying that mecha form with an energy blast that had destroyed the mecha's core completely, not knowing that Ella had been piloting it at the time.

This left little hope of anyone being able to rebuild it. She knew that Ella was bonded to its core, was how it had survived. It was the only possible explanation for Ella showing up in that form on Cybertron just recently.

The old Livewire unit was one of the original 12, a white dragon mecha unit, an opposing force to her black dragon unit. One of the fabled 'Twelve' that existed in the time the Angellion were around, long before she even existed. But now its spirit inhabited Ella's body and the thought of it disgusted Decellion.

Back during the wars of her time, a long time ago now, she and her partner were on a hell's quest to destroy the last of these units for universal supremacy, using their own creation to do so.

Decellion had at the time also been deceased in a way and without a body and had taken possession of Ellorian Duragano, youngest sister of the Duragano family, her enemies. It was this body that she still now possessed.

At the time Ella also had some double agents working with her to try and destroy her organisation from within. Those individuals were her partner's own younger brother Morgan Devlin, and his personal squad of fighters. It was Morgan who had been romantically involved with Ellorian, it was one of the reasons he had chosen to be involved.

The other reason was due to the fact that Morgan had made it known to others that he wanted his older brother's power for his own, and made use of an opportunity provided to him by the then Alliance.

But Decellion, in control of Ellorian's body had encouraged her partner Deukalion to recreate their once grand army, using enslavement, as well as cloning technology and genetic enhancements of a species called the Cybredion that were ancestral predecessors of the Bioroids.

Morgan's brother had also become possessed as Ellorian had by Deukalion for his purposes and did not baulk at using his great dark power for creating an army and use them against their enemy. It was these Necromancers that Decellion had once again gotten hold of for her own army now and the Dominion's drone mecha's, the Destrons for her own uses.

And it was all her knowledge that she had from their original creations that led to her working with Scorponok to create a Bioroid program for the Decepticons.

Decellion was also trying to connect to something within Galvetron, she knew something was there connecting him to Deukalion but had to find it first, she knew it was her old love somewhere inside his mind.

Decellion remembered him very fondly. Her loyalty to Deukalion was paramount, and her apparent loyalty to Galvetron was part of it, in order to re-establish that part of him that was Deukalion. She knew he possessed some of his essence and was using this to her advantage. But he also possessed some of the essence belonging to the traitorous brother, Morgan Devlin.

This both enthralled and disgusted her at the same time, but so long as she had Galvetron wrapped around her digits, she didn't care. She sought only to fulfil her plan.

She was steadfastly working with Scorponok and the Hive scientists to bind the Pretender technology and the Deltronian Bioroid technology together. She intended to use the technology on her personal team of Necromancers, so that they could infiltrate Earth undetected.

*

In New York, the summit had been going on for some time.

Some of the visiting news crews were having trouble with sending off data to news networks and so Blaster, had willingly decided to help them set up a system that everyone could use for the duration of the summit, after all he was a walking talking communications system himself, while at the same time he would be able to monitor all communications, both incoming and outgoing.

The other visiting Autobots from both Earth and Cybertron were rather bored as the humans were still arguing over the contract they had been shown. After the first argument had been settled, in which some of the other countries had argued that the United States were monopolising the new deal that the Alliance were offering, many of the humans of this general assembly however could not agree to one thing.

And many of the representatives that had travelled here to Earth had even wondered why the Alliance council had asked them come here at this time, Many thought it was a waste and that these people were not ready to become a part of the Alliance at all.

A couple of Cybertronians who had now become senators for Cybertron at Alliance Central had come along to give support for the signing of the deal. Skids and Perceptor had seen a great deal of what the Alliance had to offer in the short time they had been able to see their new place of work. The Alliance members of Alpha Prime had hid nothing from them and they had embraced the good the Alliance had to offer. They came here today in favour of its support for Earth and to offer their support to their comrades today who were also here.

Ultra Magnus sighs and turns to Kup who is next to him and says, "Its times like this that I wish my brother were here. He is better at this sort of thing than I am, always knows what to say and when to say it. What does a soldier like me have to do with politics?"

Kup is also uneasy at what is going on, "Take it easy lad, we'll get through this. Cybertronians've been here on Earth on and off for the past three and a half decades of their time. They take just as long to sort through things as our high council does." Kup was thinking about days of the past again. "At least we have friends amongst the members that the Alliance council has chosen to represent for Cybertron." He was of course referring to Skids, Perceptor, Inferno, and Red Alert. They were four members that would come to represent the Alliance council on Cybertron with all the particulars of the agreement with the council were finally ironed out.

Sitting quietly, not too far from them was Adam Drake, Ella's son. At least that's who he was privately. The general public at large thought him just a businessman, a very smart and astute one who had taken over the company from its former owner. Ella was this owner but at the time she was under another name and another guise to hide her true self from the public at large, and her true identity from the human race.

*

Ella sat and listened. Through the news presentation she watched the goings on at the summit. She wasn't all that worried about what was going on, but was glad the Alliance had finally seen fit to send some representatives to Earth to add them to the Alliance.

'_Took them long enough,'_ she thought.

She hadn't liked having to do it but for the past million years she'd had a hand in shaping and creating their race to what it is today. Over time many secret societies had arisen amongst the humans who wished to control their world for themselves, as well as some secret societies devoted to her hidden identity and history. Some of these latter secret societies were selflessly protecting the true power Earth had also, two sides of a secret war that were constantly at each others throats. And Ella was stuck right in the middle, not able to do much but watch them fight for control as she was mostly powerless to intervene in human matters. Mecha were a different matter entirely.

She thought back to one million Earth years ago when she had still been a member of the outer Alliance council. Back then she had been backwards and forwards between the Alliance and Cybertron about the last fourteen million years. But about one million years ago, Earth time, was when the Council commissioned her for Project Genesis on Earth.

What was included as part of her experiment was to create a viable organic species that was based on Bioroid DNA and Earth was selected as the laboratory. The initial results she sent back to the Council were not met kindly, they wanted quick results, but she couldn't give them that, as evolution took time.

Their being upset was due to the fact the Dominion, who were making trouble at the time were onto them and were coming to Earth. She could not give them quick results, what she had made needed time to evolve and grow. Ella had discovered what some members of the Council were going to do with the so called new breed and after creating her prototype she destroyed most of the notes, stopping the Alliance council and also the Dominion from getting access to her findings.

She had created the first biological prototype from her own DNA. He was exactly like her in a lot of ways, having her extended life span and some powers but not her shape shifting abilities, he was solely and wholly organic, and very powerfully psionic. The human race would be shocked to know that the one referred to in their precious bible, they so dearly coveted was her creation, her son Adamus.

She had found out after that incident on Earth with the Dominion, that the council had taken liberty and took some of her leftover notes she had missed and had tried to replicate the experiment to a degree and with no success, and left the cybernetic humanoids they had made, to live out their days as another new species on another planet within the Alliance. They had never again bothered to try and create or replicate Ella's work as they always seemed to come across problems, like Ella's notes were cursed.

They had seen very quickly that it was a unique gift granted only to her for the project and with their objections during Project Genesis had unintentionally driven her away from the Alliance as well.

She had left the Alliance and had stayed on Earth to protect the new fledgling species to the present day, to stop both the Alliance and the Dominion from getting at them. But now she realised it was time to begin to let go of them and let them protect themselves, as was their right, basically the same she had done for many species around the Alliance, she had a hand in creating over time.

The Alliance never again found another Bioroid that had the same high grade power levels that Ella had. And she wouldn't work with them directly ever again.

But it didn't stop them from trying to interfere in Project Genesis on Earth. It was the independent people of the Alliance that influenced various clans of long living humans on Earth so long ago, their mythical Gods and Goddesses that eventually created the secret societies, inclined to lord themselves over humans or act as their guides and protectors, as the compassionate nature of humanity did start to affect some of them and changed them. But most of these individuals and groups returned back to the Alliance from the planets of origin, while others did stay to live amongst the humans in hiding, not wanting to return home.

She of course knew what some of the secret societies were made for and what they were up to. She quite often saved individuals from these secret societies by turning her new friends into machines like herself. But the secret agenda of the Alliance council didn't want that, they wanted an organic bloodline of powerful individuals they could manipulate. While they knew Ella had created the Adamus prototype, her DNA was still in his system and this set of organic genes in humans made for powerful psychic abilities in the individual, especially in humans, but became suppressed at the start due to interbreeding with the local hominids on Earth at the time.

When Ella found these people and had them converted for cyberisation, not only did it bring their true power out it also granted them some safety under her protection. Away from these secret organisations under Ella's protection, with the nano-mechanisms in their system she could monitor them and keep them safe. She could do barely anything for the humans, and their organics.

While watching the screen, she could see the other mechanoids around Adam and fondly remembered back to hers days on Sigma Prime nearly 30 million Earth years ago. The then Primus, the planets protector, had reformatted her for a new purpose after she had expelled a nearly impossible amount of energy to dispel the Dominion from the system not long before that. She was still annoyed at her husband of the time, Rodine Helion, for placing her in that weapons shaft, but now understood why he did it. It had taken her time to come to this realisation as her personal feelings had somewhat blinded her to it. At the time Vector Sigma had collected all the soul sparks of all the people that had died that day and placed them in a well of sparks.

She was the first to be reformatted. It had taken her a while to realise what had happened though. She had been asleep for some 5 million years recuperating from the loss of energy, as Vector Sigma was keeping her alive with its own. She had awakened very weak and unable to use her body.

She had also become disgusted by the fact that another race had invaded the planet and sought to use it for their own ends. She was well protected in a secret chamber by Vector Sigma who had come to call her Prima, she was fond of the name and the friend she had made out of this core computer but these Quintessons had to go.

They had invaded Sigma Prime and while she was protected from them, they had gotten into data files and discovered Vector Sigma's storehouse of knowledge and had created their own robotic life forms. It had taken them quite sometime to come to the conclusion of making purely robotic forms as they had also come across information stored in Vector Sigma's Data banks about techno-organic life forms, her own former species, but they didn't understand any of it. Once they had tried and failed in this endeavour, and they had sought to wipe the material from the databanks of the planet but to no avail, and instead locked it away for no one to find.

She was somewhat disgusted with these Quintessons using the young robotic species as slaves, all the more reason to have them removed. She was unaware that it was Vector Sigma who had brought the Quintessons here to the planet they had renamed Cybertron, in order for the robotic life forms to be created, and now that they had done that they were no longer needed and were made to leave, somewhat forcibly.

She remembered when she was able to influence the young mechanoid species of the planet to fight for themselves and earn their freedom from the yolk of their would be creators.

But it wasn't over then. After she left for a while, time there was followed by millions of years of civil war to varying degrees. Their memory as shape shifting individuals started to show in a technological fashion during that time.

During her remembrance of the past, she had drifted off to an offline state, a trance of some kind.

*

After an hour of heated discussion, the diplomats had come at least to some form of understanding, and had agreed at least to allow the US Government to stage an area that would allow the Alliance to begin their indoctrination of Earth into its fold.

For many more hours they also discussed the mechanoids that the Alliance had at their disposal. Many humans were alright with having the Autobot presence here on Earth but then there were others who would rather control them to their advantage. Like the US Military, as they had their own mecha units already, though no one but the people involved in that project knew about it.

This was when Adam Drake had gotten up in front of the whole assembly. He had smirked to himself when he had noticed the agitation of the members of the US Military at the mention of the Alliance mecha units.

He went against the secrecy of the US Military and their mecha units and proceeded to tell the assembly all about Project Messiah. He told them about his research, about the construction of viable mechanoid battle units that would allow human pilots to fight alongside the Autobots and also about how the technology for these units were derived from Alliance technology. And the idea he had for schooling the pilots, right in Port Angeles.

Some of the high ranking officials from the US Military were listening very closely. They had an intent to take care of Adam, and were very annoyed when he had gotten up and started talking about Project Messiah, but were floored when he had revealed more information than even they knew about. And this is where more arguments started.

Outside, the ones who were listening, had already made up their minds. Present outside the reach of security and also inside amongst the forum members, were some humanitarian fanatics, who were hell bent on preserving the human race as it was and stop the onset of technology. They had already committed several acts of what the world saw as terrorism. They were bio-fanatics. They saw the people who were accepting cybernetic replacements instead of accepting natural deaths as evil and that the world needed to be purged of these heathens and were secretly aligned to a society that upheld their values.

Over the years they caused the Autobots no end of trouble also. As the years had gone by they had to fight against these rising fanatics groups as much as they had to fight against their enemies the Decepticons. And these terrorists were becoming smarter at using their own technology against them until the US military had joined forces with them to subdue them for a time. As it was this group of terrorists that were ultimately responsible for the downfall of the Decepticon base Trypticon and the severe damage that was served to Metroplex years ago that took them both out of action for some time.

Although Metroplex had never fully recovered from that attack. It had taken a lot on Ultra Magnus and Jazz's part to convince the other humans to be allowed to stay and help with the repairs afterwards. Metroplex was not very forgiving at the time.

The US government had been searching for the headquarters of this 'League Of Humanity' for over a decade to no avail. They had surmised that there was no headquarters, that the inner circle of this group were spread out all over the world. But one extension of the group was here today.

Adam was on the podium explaining to the assembly, who were all listening intently, about his explanation of injecting certain individuals with a chemical that would allow these new mechs to be piloted by humans. That was when the terrorists struck.  
A single individual had gotten into the crowd in the forum undercover with a ceramic weapon that had been undetectable, and as he was sitting on his own he was able to construct this weapon privately. He had this gun aimed at Adam and struck him down with a single shot to the head and then fled quickly.

The soldiers that were part of the audience had caught sight of him and went after the young individual. They had caught him without trouble, but there was a problem, he was strapped to a bomb. When he set it off, it killed the three soldiers that had stopped him the first time, and killed him also, as well as several of the delegates that were close by at the back of the forum room. As he had also set explosives to destroy this forum and everything it stood for.

The Autobots had reacted just as fast as the soldiers had, getting out the visiting delegates that they could. Several people had been killed, but even more were injured. There was chaos everywhere.

Blaster hadn't been able to disconnect himself from the communications satellite when the trouble started as one of the blasts had tossed him against a concrete wall while in his vehicle mode. Though he was offline, the signal was still transmitting. A couple of American reporters captured something impossible on camera.

"Man, Arnie this is intense!" Commented a cameraman.

"Don't point the camera at me Jake, get that footage down there!" The reporter stated, "This is going to be the story of the century!"

Down on the podium, the medics attending to Adam's apparent lifeless body gasped and stepped back in shock. The gunshot wound that had hit him square in the cranium didn't leave a small exit wound. A large pool of blood and some pieces of Adam's skull were over the podium floor. What had made them back off was the fact that the missing parts of Adam's head regrew itself. The death wound healed itself up as though nothing had happened in the first place. Adam blinked his eyes after his consciousness had returned. He got up on his feet. His blood soaked suit was however very unbecoming of someone and his position. Many other onlookers who had seen what happened including many reporters and delegates from around the world stared at him in disbelief. The man was shot, killed and got back up from the dead. Adam sighed to himself and realised things were never going to be the same ever again for him

*

In her office, Ella had suddenly woken up after realising what had happened to Adam at the summit in New York and she watched the screen.

She thought to herself as she saw Adam explain his way out of what everyone had seen to the crowd and to the world watching, _'The human race is not yet ready to know the truth about their origins as the Cybertronians are. Who knows if this species will ever be able to accept that truth. The humans are a lot more fragile about their own history and would never accept it all at once. A few individuals would come to follow it straight away but it will be a long time coming though, hence why we needed both races in the Alliance, so they don't go and try to annihilate themselves in fear. Perhaps this intervention by the Alliance came at the right time after all.'_

She sighs to herself, turns the television off with a remote and then gets up out of her chair and leaves her office.

*

Decellion had finished writing the code sequentials and sent a file back through subspace transmission to Scorponok, so he and his scientists could begin the upgrades at their end. Once done she had gone to see how the rest of her own scientists here in the Citadel laboratories were doing with the soldiers she had found were compatible with her tech program.

On the way there she had spotted Cyclonus. He gave her a disapproving look. She knew he was not happy about her taking a place by his masters' side. She also knew something else about him. While she had spent a short time with the Decepticons she had found out useful information. It appeared that Scourge and Cyclonus had been reformatted by a being called Unicron from other Decepticons. She remembered the two in question. She had watched the Decepticons haplessly fighting against the humans on Earth for years. She had only been able to watch them from her prison as it was their innate darkness that had awoken her and attracted her to their actions so far away.

She discovered that Cyclonus and Scourge had apparently been reformatted using two of Megatron's soldiers named Thundercracker and Skywarp and the sweeps were reformatted from the Insecticons. Everyone else believed this but she knew it was not the case.

Somehow Unicron had only used their bodies, she had seen the energy patterns present in all those individuals before being reformatted and she saw their energy patterns again after they were reformatted. They did not match. She knew instantly that Unicron must have substituted other soul sparks for these ones, using and reformatting the bodies to his will. The original sparks must be elsewhere she thought, but it was clear that the spark of the individual now in front of her in the hallway belonged to one of Deukalion's old generals, as did the soul spark of Scourge. She did not really care what had happened to the old soul sparks and did not care.

She smiled at Cyclonus, who was face to face with her, "Is there something I can help you with soldier?" She was being sarcastic as she knew why he was facing her down. He wasn't blind to everything that was happening as the other soldiers could be; this one was an intelligent and meticulous thinker.

He glared at her for a moment, "No." Then turned to leave, walking away from her.

She also turned to leave the hallway but with her back turned to him she didn't see him grinning widely about some news he had just reported to Galvetron, concerning her agenda and he knew she would be furious about it. Scourge would also be interested to know this as he had begun to take Cyclonus' side against Decellion, but he was also as wary of their master as Cyclonus was.

On the Hive moon, Galvetron was standing by an external window in his quarters given him by Scorponok, staring outside, with his arms and hands behind his back. He was just standing there staring out into space, but the expression on his faceplate, a reflection on the window in front of him, was that of a very angry mech.

In the labs, Decellion is thinking to herself about the recent loss of one of the Matrices and is thinking about how to get that unit back, the Dark only knew where it was now or who had it. But she would have it as her own again.

She stopped mulling over it and watched as the scientists gathered together the group who was to follow Soundwave to Earth after the upgrades had been completed. She also put together a few of her Necromancers who had undergone the process.

Unlike most, Decellion had the ability to travel instantaneously to locations she had been to, but this time she had to use the mind of one of the Decepticons to do it as most of them had been there before and she had not. The journey was quick and without any trouble. The group found themselves a hiding spot and set about to wait for Soundwave's arrival on Earth.

*

In Ella's office Rodimus had walked in looking for Ella but hadn't found her, but he wasn't alone. Rodine was with him once again in spirit form offering him some counsel. This was one of the reasons he often sought out Ella, to help him cope with his physical changes as well as his new friend.

At times Rodine was a pain but he was useful to have around too.

Rodine takes his spirit form over to Ella's desk, sits down and then puts his feet up.

"I noticed you have a bit of a crush on somebody?" Rodine asks in an amused tone.

The mech smiles at the comment, "Yeah so?"

Rodine smiles and says, "Well it won't work for now, she was my wife, she serves a different role for you in this life." Rodimus disagrees and they argue about it for some time, but also discuss a whole range of things while waiting for Ella to return.

"So why are you here anyway?" Rodimus asks.

Rodine smirks and says, "Because whether you know it or believe it, you are the chosen one of your race and we need to train you for that." Rodine notices his puzzled expression and continues, "You and I are of the same soul spark kid. I can help you with anything you ask about, anything at all, and Ella can also help you, in regards to power training, so you have to trust me. I'm not really supposed to be here. I'm already breaking so many rules right now just talking to you, warning you about what's to come. Think of me as your own personal guardian angel."

"Sounds great!" Rodimus rolls his optics in sarcasm.

"Hey I'm not kidding alright, this is all real!" Rodine tries to get his focus back on the subject at hand.

"I don't think you would be much help to me, I'm too used to going my own way and looking after myself."

"You've got a lot of power potential in you kid and we need you. Everything happens for a reason!" He disappears completely and it doesn't help him at all.

He thinks to himself that since he had first met Ella and her crew, it had been one roller coaster ride after another. He smirks. "Well if that's what I've got to look forward to then I guess I better go do something about it!" He says to himself, and walks out of Ella's office.

*


	34. Chapter 34 Love Interests

*Love Interests*

*

Ella had made her way to the Art Studio where she had found Flashdance and Joyride discussing some personal matters. They had stopped their conversation when they saw Ella walk up to them. Both were currently in their Biomodes.

"Ladies, I have a job for the both of you?" She asks. "Adam has sent me a private message. Flick', I'll need you to go undercover in your Biomode amongst the US military in Colorado where they have moved the mecha units to. Take some others along with you who can help keep an eye or two on things there." She turns to Casey and continues, "And you I will need for a little trip."

Casey's attention has heightened slightly upon the mention of an adventure. "Dis bein' de part o'de job I be livin' for!" She exclaims, rubbing the hands of her Biomode together. "Where I be goin' den boss?" She asks. "Where I go goin' den boss, Cairo? De Himalayas? Peru?"

"I want you to head underneath the base." Casey slumps and then gulps. "There is an entry to an underground part beyond the Biosphere where the Dinosaurers have made their temporary home. There you will find a group there I need you to make contact with for me. They are currently protecting something that Decellion may come after and they need to know she is possibly on her way here or on the planet already." Casey nods. "I want you to take this," She hands a pendant to Casey, "If you can get in there and show this to the guardian, she won't be so protective of the area. But you have to get there first."

Casey ponders the information. She had heard stories about another group of individuals who lived under their base. She had never been down below the deeper depths of the caves beyond the Biosphere as she quite often heard growls and snarls coming from in there when Burnout took her to look on their days off exploring. But she would always run off like a coward as she didn't know or understand what was there. But she was till curious, the main reason she had agreed to it, despite her fear.

Take whoever you need with you, just two will be fine. The team is rather spread out right now, so you'll have to ask the mechs to help you out.

Casey sheepishly left the Art Studio and went to pack the provisions she would need as she didn't know how long she would be exploring those caves. And Felicia followed behind her.

Ella watches both of the femmes leave and when leaving herself runs into Heather.

"Something I can help you with Heather?" Asks Ella as she continues walking. Heather nods and Ella responds, "Let's talk at the lookout, shall we?"

*

The lookout is above the highest point of the base, above where the base residents inhabit the mountain below it.

It was a lookout point for incoming aircraft into the upper hidden runway within the confines of the mountain, and could only be reached through an elevator shaft or climbing up or down the mountain outside. And considering the winds and the sheer drops on some points, was only for the daring to try and climb.

The local residents were of course unawares of anything in or around the mountain. Flashdance's large collection of disguised animecha took care of any non permitted humans venturing too close to the base, as well as Ranger generally taking care of and monitoring the humans who used the forest area of the national park that was near the base when she wasn't on assignment.

Heather and Ella found a spot and started their talk.

"So what was it you wanted to ask?" Ella inquires.

"Just lonely for some company I guess!" She muses.

"You lonely? Hmm there's a new one. You aren't still pouting over finding out your truck was Elita One are you?"

"Yeah a bit. How come you never told me that?" She asked outright, a bit annoyed.

"I knew you had a bit of a crush on Optimus Prime and I knew who the spark was that I used for your trucks internal operating system. I needed someone to help remind the awakening spark within about who they were." Ella paused for a moment to look at Heather, "Don't worry, you're not the first this has happened to, and I'm sure Elita will allow you a grace or something for looking after her for all those years you two were together keeping each other safe.

Heather peers down at the dragon tattoos on her arms for a moment, watching them twist and spiral in their artwork up both of her arms and around to her shoulders. She could not see the tails of the dragons that were intertwined on her back but she knew they were there. The tattoos were new and she gingerly puts her hands on the dragon heads that were on the top of her hands admiring the highly detailed artwork that Felicia had put into the work.

'So you like those huh?" Ella asks noticing her friend's attention to the detail.

"Yeah. Flick' did a really good job. I like them." Heather replied.

"The dragon in general reminds me of home, during the wars we had a very long time ago before your race even existed."

"Must have been a real long time ago for you to even remember it!" She jested.

"Oh ha ha!" Called back Ella. "Just because my hair is white doesn't mean I'm that far gone yet. Besides I have my own dragon tattoo."

Heather knew that white hair amongst the Bioroid species was an indication of a very aged personage. She peers down the back of Ella's shirt to see the dragon on her back; it was an exact replica of the alt mode she used recently while on Cybertron. As soon as she tried to touch it, it moved slightly. This surprised Heather and she backed off suddenly with a gasp.

"It's ok, she's just scanning you. She does that when she gets touched. Ordinarily she won't do anything but she knows that you're safe to reveal herself to."

"You mean to tell me that the alternate dragon mode you morphed into on Cybertron wasn't you?" Asked Heather.

"No. That was Livewire. She is but one of the spirits that inhabit the devices that guardians like me are duty bound to protect.

"How do you even fit her in there, I've seen her, she's huge?"

"Zero Point Manifold nanomesh. She can fit herself into any form or space just like my species can with shape shifting. The rest of her sits inside the molecular form of my body."

"Kind of like the subspace function that the Transformers have only within living tissue?"

"Yeah just like that."

"So if you have a Matrice and also the dragon is a part of that Matrice, does that mean Optimus has one too?"

"I suppose he does, but the bronze dragon hasn't been seen or heard from since my time. It's generally only the female guardians who can bring out the dragons."

Heather thinks for a moment then answers, "Well I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that a gargantuan mechanoid dragon is living inside your body?" She laughs for a moment then sighs, "And that any of them can suppress their size and shape into anything?" She furls her brows, "So they don't create any extra weight on you or pressure to your internal mecha framework?"

"No, not in the slightest. In fact, Livewire sometimes acts as a system monitor, she can make use of my system anytime she wants from the inside and live my life along with me, and has on occasion enhanced my biostructure when needed, the extra long lifespan is one of those advantages.

"Ah yeah, you're quite old even for one of your species, only Freya and Heartia rival your age."

"Only because Freya is a guardian and Heartia once was also."

"I'll explain more to you about the Zero Point Manifolds later. No one is ever able to wrap their head around it at first; even Jackson took two days to get it."

"Two whole days?" She responds surprised.

"Well, he was on Atlantis then, and that was a long time ago."

"Oh! Okay."

"So, anything else you'd like to ask about?" Ella asks her old friend.

"No, that'll have to do for now." Heather looks at her watch and realises she's late. "Damn! I was supposed to leave for a supply run to the Ark 20 minutes ago!"

"Its fine," Ella calls out, "I'll contact Peter and let him know I held you up."

"Ok thanks!" With that Heather races off to the elevator and leaves.

Once Heather is out of sight, Ella turns her attention to the surrounding countryside and the wondrous view. She sighs to herself taking in this planets natural beauty, then she gets out her phone and dials a number.

"Hello Peter. Yes I'm fine. How about you? Good. Listen Heather has been held up, we got carried away talking so she might be a little late for your supply delivery ok, Alright I will talk later. Goodbye." She hangs up the cell phone and goes back to watching, she hears some voices higher up where the wind is stronger and realises that Nightfall had some of his team training.

Something she had gotten used to with Seekers was that they preferred high places, which was one reason why she allowed them to have their quarters near the landing strip on the higher parts of the base, with the exception of Starscream whose residence was near everyone else.

'_I wonder what the girls are up to at Autobot City today?_' She wonders to herself.

*

At the Autobot base, the Roughnecks team was making a visit. Usually it was the other way around, but today the Autobots were a little busier than usual.

Perhaps it was due to the fact that Ultra Magnus was on Earth and that they were cleaning up and getting the place organised just in case he decided to make a sudden inspection.

Jazz was secure in his office sorting out piles of datapads when the femmes arrived and hadn't been told of their arrival yet.

Sound Track looked over everything when she came in, including all that were with her. She noted the missing members of her team and thought about what they were doing, letting her telepathy seek them out one by one.

She knew from using her telepathic link with her sister Flashdance that the red plated scientist had been sent on assignment to Colorado, and that her other sister Joyride had been sent to find and contact the residents under the base. Sound Track made a mental smirk at that.

She remembered when Ella first sent her down under the base to deal with the hive of Cybredeon that were down there. They were one of the last remaining groups still left alive in the galaxy, friendly to their friends but lethal to their enemies.

They had originally been part of an Angellion transport ship when it crashed and had just stayed there in the catacombs when the Angellion either died out or ascended and left them behind. The ship then became Dragon Mountain base after a while, as this ship was as buried under a mountain as the Autobots ship was.

Sound Track started thinking about the others, Freestyle was in New York with Landslide, she knew neither of those two would be back in a hurry when their mission was over and nor would Tempest.

New York was like a home town to Tempest now that she was binary bonded to her Italian American partner who was originally from there. But Tempest also liked Los Angeles, specifically Hollywood and also Las Vegas.

Freefall was also in New York. Even thought she wasn't officially part of the team roster again yet, Sound Track knew it was only a matter of time before it happened, and she still considered her old friend as a part of her team from before when Freefall had been the previous group leader of the Roughnecks and Sound Track had been the group member.

Steelwind was the latest recruit. She was one of the very few who had opted to have her essence completely transferred to a Deltronian Transformer bodyshell immediately instead of waiting for the customary time for the cyberisation to take affect.

It was different for everyone, but Steelwind, AKA Victoria Steele wasn't the type to sit around and wait. She was a former Australian Air Force Captain who had supposedly died in a base accident. Ella had been watching her activities beforehand and had assisted in covering up her fake death and shipped her out of the base she was on and over to Dragon mountain.

Vicky had no family as the Airforce was her life, being a trained pilot, she couldn't live without being able to fly. That and she was a big fan of the Transformers too. She had made the decision and told Ella, as her body was dying anyhow, that she wanted a new body, a mecha one, something that wouldn't keep her away from what she loved most, and that was of course giving her a body that was a plane.

And not just a normal plane, but a cargo plane. Steelwind loved the big cargo planes the Airforce used, those were the ones she piloted, all over the world before her accident and then she had become one. She was strong, fast and powerfully built and she revelled in it, especially since her mind had come along with her. Her astute intelligence and military training certainly fared well within the new mecha body.

That left Sound Track with Burnout, Vanguard, Sunstar and of course, herself.

Vanguard of course was intent on finding her old friend, "Oh Jazz!" She called out, "Come out come out wherever you are!" She mused.

Jazz of course had only just finished part of his work and was mulling to himself, _'Geez I dunno how Prowl ever did it!_' He was walking along one of the corridors to go to the rec room for energon when Vanguard spotted him.

"Oh there you are!" She of course charges him and grabs him, lifting him up over her head. He can't help but relax and not fidget while he was being held aloft by his old friend.

Jazz couldn't help but jest at her enthusiasm, "Argh help! It's a femme monster! A big white one!"

This causes Vanguard to deliberately drop him and he lands square on his aft hurting himself.

"Let that be a lesson to you not to tease a femme who's not only stronger than you but also has you held up over her head."

"Point taken!" Then he bursts out laughing.

Vanguard sighs then grabs his hand and lifts him up in one go. She notices that he is still rubbing his sore aft, "What? Has poor Spazz got a boo boo now?"

Spazz was a nickname she used to always call him, and she used it to tease him, but Jazz didn't really mind. "Yeah, you gonna kiss it t'make it better!"

Vanguard raises a brow as does Sunstar.

"No, But I'll have to grab it and rub it too!" She had gotten too grabby and Jazz was still sore and in a little pain and kept trying to get away from her. When he finally got away he ran towards the rec room, "Chicken bot!" She calls out as he disappears.

Burnout bursts out laughing at the whole scene, "I'm goin' te find me mech Sideswipe so I'll see ye later." And she leaves.

Left in the company of Sunstar and Vanguard, Sound Track snorts and lets out a laugh.

Vanguard notices and comments, "Wow, she actually laughs!"

"Shut it ya'll! An' just how long have ya'll been that close ta Jazz?"

Realising that her team leader had a bit of a crush on her friend she replies, "Oh we've been friends for ages, I used to treat him like a little brother because his parents were terminated during the early part of the war and he had no one else, so we both enjoy play fighting with each other."

Sound Track sighs, she had been observing Vanguards behaviour. It was not that she was jealous of how well she got along with just about anyone, it was how well she got along with Jazz. While she and Jazz could talk for long periods of time on various subjects, she just didn't have the ease of friendliness and sense of humour Vanguard had.

"Ok ya'll let's go help these mechs get this place in order."

Vanguard and Sunstar follow their team leader to the rec room to where Jazz had disappeared to.

Later.

"So you're telling me that these new Biomode bodies are fully interactive?" Asks Bumblebee. He had just come into the rec room from patrol with Cliffjumper and was lucky enough to hear the start of the whole conversation thus far.

"Yep. Though to a degree it'll only work as well as you want it to work. If you are a die hard mecha then it probably won't work like another species even if you're in that species body." Responded Vanguard.

"Very interesting!" Says a curious Sideswipe, who was bundled onto a long booth chair with his girlfriend Burnout sidled up behind him.

"You would find something like that interesting Dirtbot!" Exclaims his twin.

"Shut it Slagface." Came the retort.

"You shut it Aft-…"

"Why don' ye both shut it!" Burnout interjected. She had already had to put up with the two fighting once already and had downed both of them. Sunstreaker still having a sore arm where Burnout had restrained him on the ground while also punching Sideswipe who still had a lip component that was oozing fluid.

Sunstreaker stared her down, and Burnout only raised a brow in response. "Fine, I'm going over to sit somewhere else, alone, where there are no stinking Dirtbots and their pet whores."

"Sunny!" Jazz looked up at Sunstreaker when he made the comment then looked at Burnout who shrugged her shoulder plates when she noticed Jazz's gaze and then went back to fondling Sideswipe's headcasing.

When Sunstreaker came over to sit at another seat, Vanguard reaches over the seat and whispers, "No point calling her a whore, she already knows she is one and doesn't care."

"Slag off!" He snaps at Vanguard.

Vanguard smiles. She knew Sunny was just jealous of his brother spending his time with someone that wasn't him. She puts her hand on Sunstreaker's head and forces him to look at where Sunstar is and tells him, "She needs some company, don't you think?"

*

On the Hive moon, the experiment had been a complete success, as all of the Decepticons that were compatible had been converted by Scorponok as per the program he received from Decellion. As soon as he was done he quickly got everything packed and then left with Galvetron back to Charr. It seemed their base had been infiltrated by a spy and they hadn't the time to find out who, so they just packed up and left, leaving explosives to decimate the base should it be found be anyone, including any Autobots.

Decellion however was elsewhere.  
She was on Earth. She had hid her energy signature so well that no one from amongst their enemies had discovered her yet, as her energy pattern stood out like a sore thumb.

It had been some time since she had last thought about the base on Earth and about the living computer on Earth. As far as she knew, the planet wasn't yet part of the Alliance and would not yet have the same defence and security systems in place that other planets of the Alliance had.

Cybertron was the exception there. It was not part of the Alliance at the time it had been attacked by the combined forces of both Decellion and Galvetron's soldiers. The inhabitants there, she knew had been at war for millions of years and were not ones to take likely. She and Galvetron would have most likely succeeded in their attempt to overcome control of Cybertron by the Autobots if it had not been for the intervention of Ella and her accursed friends.

Her current plan was to have her Necromancers and Destrons converted to Earth style Biomodes and infiltrate the denizens of the planet. They had tried direct conflict and it had failed; now she was resorting to espionage and infiltration.

She secretly planned to get several of her soldiers into undercover positions as close to the Dragon Valley base as possible so they could survey the people and technology and gain as much information as they could about anything connected to what they were looking for.

*

On Nebulon, Optimus Prime had come to visit to check up the progress of his teams there, leaving Elita One in charge back on Cybertron.

The bulk of the soldiers under his command were having a hard time of it locating the renegade Decepticons. They had little success in putting together a useful strategy to do so until they received some very useful information via recon units. Their whereabouts had been discovered on the Hive moon.

The renegade hideaways had been in the process of leaving and then destroying their base. This was what allowed them to be found.

It was not entirely known to the Autobots what their ultimate plan was, but both the Alliance and Ella had provided them the background information on Galvetron's new would be associate and their history with the Alliance. It helped them greatly, but it had not helped them to capture all of their old foes as yet.

The base was empty when they found it, albeit very scarred from the explosions, but some things could be salvaged.

The Decepticons they had caught on the planet were secure in holding cells built especially for them, but there was no one here to capture, not even a petro rat. The rest were still at large, probably returning back to Charr someone had stated blithely.

But they still didn't know who it was that reported the base and the plan Decellion and Galvetron had? As it was not one of their own. They were told which moon to look at and then the energy spikes from the explosions caught their attention.

When everything had been put into lockdown in the now empty Hive Moon base, Optimus put a call through to Autobots Earth command, about the situation and let them know exactly what was going on.

*

On Earth In southern Oregon, the snow hadn't yet started to fall, and today they were in the middle of some stormy weather. Some of the Roughnecks team were visiting the Autobot base again.

It was still early November and it was pouring down with rain.

Since Rodimus had pretty much become a permanent resident of the Dragon Valley Base, Ella had seen to it that the Roughnecks were at the beck and call of the Autobots when they were needed.

Ultra Magnus had resumed command of their Earth base when he was finished with his business in New York as per orders from Optimus himself. This was a dire relief to Jazz though who was once again taking orders rather than giving them and he was loving it.

Outside on guard duty, two Roughnecks members were in attendance helping out, and also one Earth Autobot, Hound, who had recently gotten himself a Biomode, but for the moment was still in his robot mode. All three were out in the rain; none seemed to be bothered by it at all.

"So the water not bothering you at all, eh Hound?" Asks Vanguard via communicator. She was within visual range of Hound but not even close enough for casual communication.

Hound smiled to himself. He was quite enjoying the freedom of his new Biomode, despite some of the jibes he'd gotten from Tracks and Cliffjumper about it until they got their own Biomodes. He was enjoying himself nonetheless, especially the rain, it wasn't harmful acid rain like it was back home, and the feeling of it on his nanoskin made him feel refreshed and recharged by it.

"I'm perfectly fine." He said to her over the communicator. In the distance on the other side of the base, he could hear Sound Track.

All she was doing was just standing there. She was the only one out of all three of them who was out in the torrential rain and she didn't even shutter an optic over having all that water running over her or through her waterproof circuitry.

She had her sound system going at only half level, but it could be clearly heard over the howling wind and thunderous storm.

Since the Wreckers team had arrived from Nebulon, they had found it hard to believe that she was a Prime, but they knew she no longer had the Matrix she was a guardian of, having it stolen by Decellion during battle. They had never seen a female Prime before.

The fact that she didn't have her Matrice anymore didn't bother her; she still had a link to it and could feel its mind out there somewhere. For now she was just content to listen to Ella's orders and wait for her Matrice to come to her. She wasn't happy about it, but she knew how Ella could see these things.

She had come here today as a sign of goodwill towards Autobot City's returning Commander. Ultra Magnus had been the Commander of the city once before but was replaced by Jazz when he was needed to take care of some missions elsewhere with the Wreckers.

Some of her team had been secretly teasing that one of the reasons she'd agreed to help at Autobase was because of Jazz, though no one was game to say it to her faceplate, as Sound Track never revealed much of her intentions to anyone and she wasn't too pleasant if you got on her wrong side and said the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Hound and Vanguard had come down to the entrance level for the change-over of the shift. Sound Track was still up on top standing in the rain and letting her sound system blare out its melodic tunes. All three could have just as easily opted to do their shift inside, out of the rain, but Sound Track had insisted. She knew Vanguard wouldn't mind as she did guard duty in any type of weather. Hound had just found the experience different and went along with it.

In the central control room, Ultra Magnus had received a video call from Optimus Prime.

His Commander had clearly stated that they had received word from a yet undisclosed source that Decellion and a team of Necromancers and Decepticons were planning to invade Earth.

What confused Ultra Magnus was the technology they were now employing.

Several of the Nebulonian techs had been able to scour through the Hive computers and found traces of a science project that involved implementing Bioroid shape shifting technology to the transformational abilities of other mecha, specifically Decepticons.

This would indeed make their job harder. If the enemy were already here then they would be next to impossible to find as they would be able to blend in with humans and they most likely wouldn't be able to find them

Optimus had told them that he and some others were on route to Earth to assist in the event of this invasion.

"This is starting to get interesting!" Mused Kup after Optimus had clicked off his screen. "If the big boss bot is coming down here to help us with the situation then something must have really got under his grills with what they found on the Hive moon."

"Indeed." Commented Ultra Magnus. "Kup I want you to put together several security teams and have them scout around. I am not too familiar with how they run things at that femme base but from what Optimus has just told us, it may be their base they are targeting. But seeing as how the Decepticons are involved then they may give us some trouble too."

"Will do Commander." Chimed Kup, excited at the prospect of a real fight, something they hadn't had in ages. He could feel that this was going to be a real big one, bigger than some of the fights they had had recently after meeting with Ella and her Roughnecks team, he could really feel it in his tired old servos.

Optimus knew that Ella and her team would be able to help with the Dominion soldiers as they helped alongside the Autobots previously on Cybertron. And then there was the experience that the Autobots had fighting the Decepticons throughout the years.

This was a reason that Optimus had specifically said to pass along information to Dragon Valley base of operations for the Roughnecks team.

Ultra Magnus didn't know Ella too well but he had read mission reports from when her team had shown up or when their team leader Sound Track, who was here at Autobase today, was leading their team in battle.

Ultra Magnus then went and turned on his radio and got in contact with Jazz, letting him know what was going on.

Jazz agreed to pass along the information to Vanguard and Sound Track when he could.

Jazz had come out to see Sound Track in regards to the impending arrival of their Commander and his team from Cybertron. He could have just as easily posted a call through to Dragon Valley base from inside, but thought it prudent to get Sound Track to do it as she was the Commander of the Roughnecks team, the main group of mechanoids on that base. He had other reasons for coming outside in the rain but those were his secret.

Vanguard and Hound spied Jazz in the guards' shelter. "Hey what's up Jazz?" Asks Vanguard.

Jazz was listening to Sound Track's sound system still blaring on up above. "Nothin' much Van', just this." he replies and hands her the datapad he had with him.

She has a read of it and seeing that it concerns the Roughnecks team, she radios her team leader to come and see the datapad she had in her possession. She knew it wouldn't be easy to get Sound Track down and out of the rain, but luckily she came down without a fuss, and also with a certain amount of agile flair that left both Hound and Jazz gaping.

She seemed to be even more agile and powerful when water was around. She turned off her sound system before approaching the others and read the datapad that Vanguard hands to her.

"Contact Ella, tell her we have incoming on both fronts." Sound Track states.

*


	35. Chapter 35 Project Messiah

*Project Messiah*  
*

In Washington, Adam was once again in with the US President, but this time the air between them was somewhat different. Regarding what had happened on television just recently, Adam's life had been thrown into a cacophony of media attention. His speech at the UN Hall had caused the President some concern and he wanted to talk to Adam personally to discuss what he had in mind.

Most of the alien delegates had come away unscathed. The human delegates who had survived had been treated medically and were now resting and recuperating in hospitals in and around the New York area. But the countries of the delegates who had been killed, including the US were clamouring for recompense, and Adam who had inadvertently become a victim in all this had fingers being pointed at him.

Adam was no longer able to go from his property in New York to Port Angeles without being badgered by one reporter or another and so had to hire a security team. Which fondly enough consisted of undercover Biomoded mecha his mother had provided, they were Flashdance, Freestyle, Landslide, and Tempest.

The latter three of which had stayed with Adam after the incident in New York, while Flashdance had been recruited from Dragon Mountain.

At the moment, only Tempest was with him, while Landslide was outside the Presidents office, warily eyeing off the bodyguards, just waiting for one of them to give her an opportunity to wipe the smirks off their faces.

Landslide was well known to several of the FBI agents present, but only to them as her Biomode of Rei Lin Hsiang, a well known black market dealer as well as a wanted spy in the US. The president had given her a reprieve for today as she was in Adam's company.

Tempest however, while in the President's office was taking full advantage of the mirrors and admiring herself while at the same time guarding Adam. She was also smirking at the fact the President and some of his bodyguards were actually looking at her body form and so she deliberately strolled around the room showing her body off and sticking out her chest, knowing she would continue to get the attention she knew she deserved.

Meanwhile Flash' and Freestyle were somewhere on the west coast of the US.

The Military in Port Angeles had removed and relocated all their mecha creations and equipment to their secret Colorado base at the behest of the US President so they could conduct their project secretly.

On one hand this was done before the summit, and on another they were glad they did move it. They were not the slightest bit happy about Adam revealing information about mecha units that were being built for civilian use, but were only slightly relieved he had not spoken of their own secret project. But now that they had moved it would give them more secrecy and allow their own agenda to be fulfilled.

The others were on the Colorado military base overseeing a few things. The military wasn't happy that he had revealed the existence of his Project Messiah to the public. Nor were they happy that he had intended to involve members of the general public in this project as they wanted sole existence of the mecha units to be military controlled only.

They had yet to find out where exactly Adam would operate his Project Messiah from, they only knew that it would be somewhere at the Port Angeles University, but no one knew how or where on the campus it would be conducted as the University did not appear to have the appropriate facilities, especially the area to store and operate mecha units.

Little did they know the facilities were all underground.

But it wouldn't be too long before it would be revealed, that Adam was sure of.

After the summit in New York, the media circus had continued and the President had called him in to discuss a few things about the project in question, and Adam was glad for the respite.

Previously both, he, the President, some alien delegates and his joint chiefs had discussed the matter while in New York at the Summit and several of the joint chiefs, had, in private, vehemently said no to having normal people behind the control of the machines they were building for the military and that it all should be under their control. There had been a long argument between the Secretary of Defence and Adam himself about the control of the project before the incident in New York.

The President had finally given in when he saw what had happened at the Summit and came to the decision, despite the opposition from his staff. Adam now had the support of the Alliance behind him for his project and the President did not want to create any ruffled feathers between himself and their new connection with this Galactic Alliance of planets.

The President was face to face with Adam now and they were calmly discussing the scales, for and against Adam's project still going ahead with a joint co-operation between military and the people Adam had picked out to head the public sector as well as what the Alliance had hinted what they wanted also. He knew he would need to compromise and this was the decision he had come to with Adam about his project, to let him go ahead with it.

The military would provide half the general training for pilots from the Port Angeles base, as well as private training being provided at the University. The President had naturally assumed that Adam had no units built, as he had only built the military prototype models and wanted access to the ones that were now in lockdown at the Colorado base, but didn't know he had a secret facility built underneath the University that housed several dozen units ready to be used and have pilots trained almost immediately. He agreed with Adam that the units in Colorado would be used under supervision, not knowing that Adam had other plans in mind.

Adam had already placed several teachers in place both at the University and also the local high school in order for him to get pilots for his project. These individuals would then be partly responsible for the selection of these pilots he wanted. In the Alliance, younger people would be generally chosen for the role at first, the youngest to be considered would be around sixteen year old humans from both the local high school and the University Adam had marked.

The above ground teaching and training facilities at the University were only just being constructed under the guise of new educational wing and would not be complete for sometime. Adam would not be connecting the new wing to the underground base until the first class of pilots had been selected and confirmed.

*

In Port Angeles, since the announcement of Project Messiah by Adam Drake at the New York Summit, the atmosphere at the University was abuzz with activity. Several media groups had been interviewing students to get their reactions about what the government and the military were planning to do to their campus grounds.

Not all the students were aware of what had gone on at the summit but some did and welcomed giving their opinion.

The views of all involved were half and half, either for or against. Some had even said that why would they need more mecha because the Autobots were doing a good enough job. Some had also said that it was time for the people to start to take care of themselves. Some were even excited to even have a chance to get involved due to this being a probable civilian operation.

Unbeknownst to them all however, the new facilities that were being built at the University were mainly underground with most the classrooms above in the new wing, being disguised as a new library being constructed.

These hidden facilities underground had begun in construction nearly 100 years ago at the same time the University was being built and only just recently the underground part had been finished along with the mecha units being stored there with the help of Adam and a mech/human crew, carting in parts as required from the Dragon valley base that it was connected to.

It had been a long term plan implemented by Adam Drake knowing that the Alliance would eventually decide to allow the Earth to become a member of its ranks. The underground facility itself just laying dormant most of this time and watched under supervision by the crew of the Valley base.

What was being built up above ground was to be the entrance for the underground area here on the University grounds. And no one but Adam and his group would know of it until the right time came to reveal it, unless of course the Military found it.

*

In New York, many of the interplanetary delegates had left and returned to their respective areas of the Alliance to put forward their reports on their visit to Earth. Some however had opted to stay behind to gain more information about the new members of the Alliance on Earth planet and investigate this planet for recreational reasons. While others had taken the opportunity to meet up with the Cybertronians at Autobot City and so were escorted to this location for a meeting.

While they were being transported by the US Military, Optimus Prime had arrived on Earth at Autobot City.

Earth and Cybertron alike were now entering a new phase in its respective histories of galactic expansion for the native races of both planets.

*

At the Dragon Valley Base, Ella had contacted the Spyhunters team in England and had made them aware of the situation that was going on. They had been instructed by Ella's contact at their base, one of her other sons, Lucas, to be on full alert due to the location of the invaders.

And while Ella's third son in Japan had no teams under his control, he too was put on alert in case anything showed up in regards to the life signs that had shown up on the warning system somewhere in Europe.

Ella had also been contacted by Sound Track who was currently on route back to the base from Autobot City in Oregon to northern Washington State, along with Vanguard. The full report she had been given by Jazz was a rather interesting one. Ella was currently in the command centre of her base going over the statistical data with Sunstar.

Sunstar was looking at a topographical area that had been geographically redesigned with Dominion living technology. "Look at how it has been designed. Almost exactly the same as the techno organic material we are familiar with, but completely devoid of any biological matter. It completely consumes the organic material and transmutes the matter entirely to living technological matter." Sunstar comments after analysing the picture feed their satellited had picked up recently.

"No doubt the Russian military has picked up their presence from their own satellites. And if our Dominion visitors haven't already masked themselves with their tech, I just hope the Russians don't think to take it into their own hands and fight them, they wouldn't stand a chance." Ella comments.

Starscream had been wandering around the control room looking over things. It was the first time he had been allowed in the room since being brought to the base. Right now he had nothing better to do and had decided to take a look over Sunstar's shoulder plates.

Ella had begun to let him into the command centre under her watchful eyes and he was taking every opportunity to absorb as much information and detail as he could about it and how it was run. Giving him an idea of what was in for him if he was ever to take over the base for himself.

He was not particularly interested in what was going on right now but his scientific curiosity had gotten the better of him and so he had joined Ella and Sunstar in analysing the data Jazz had sent them. "And how exactly are you going to fight them? Are you going to create any devices or programs to combat their technology or are you just going to attack and blithely shoot at something that sophisticated?" He postured.

Ella raised a brow at him showing even a slight interest in what they were doing as he usually only had interest in his own science projects of late, considering she also knew that as a Decepticon warrior he himself was guilty of blithely shooting at random targets when frustrated. "Were you volunteering for the job?" Ella muses.

He stares down at her and sneers, not bothering to answer her. He had caught on very quickly that she did that on purpose to get a response out of him.

He had changed a fair amount from the stuffy and stuck up vocally arrogant upstart he was when Ella first brought him into the base. Ella had noticed the changes but he wasn't just different, he still retained most of those traits, he just didn't voice them as much as he used to.

Ella talks to him, "Well our tech expert isn't here Starscream so you can have the job of making any and all tech you think we might need for the job seeing as how you think you're the expert!" Ella pauses for a moment knowing that he will probably add his own comment but he doesn't and so she continues, "Come to think of it, if you think you're that good, then why don't you head the group for the attack too, considering Freefall's entire team is here on the base. I'll put you in charge of them for the attack if you like with Freefall observing as your second." She finishes amusingly.

He just looked at her smirking, "It's about time you gave me something worthwhile to do rather than just lazing around here doing nothing. I'm a warrior and warrior's belong out in the fight, not slaving away doing menial work like you generally get me to do." He changed his smirk to sneer.

"But you are also a scientist and the time away from any fighting has done you some good Starscream." This makes him scowl. "And I'm sure that a few others on the base are grateful for the quiet you can now offer them without you whining or prostrating yourself constantly." Ella smirks.

"Just get out of the way so I can get to work on the program parameters for the tech." He huffs and hurriedly moves Sunstar out of her seat.

"Well excuse me!" Exclaims Sunstar. Ella shushes her and both she and Ella move away from him and let him do his work and whisper between themselves some distance away out of his audio shot.

"You see, even the worst of them can be their best with a little effort!" Ella comments.

Sunstar agreed that Starscream had indeed begun to change for the better while under Ella's watch here on the base. He hadn't changed much as yet but it was enough of a change to be noticed by those who thought to put up with him, even if he was still regarded as an untrustworthy threat by most.

Sunstar was containing her amusement very well, not showing any inkling on her face at all. But Ella knew better, she knew the femme was slightly impressed at his improvements and she continues to watch Starscream work from a distance, while Sunstar returns to the medical bay to her work.

*

Underneath Port Angeles University was a secret bunker full of mecha units yet to be activated.

Doctor Raymond Chalmers and Professor Jackson Wheeler were here in this place to do some final tests on the units at Adam's requests. They had some time to do so before they were to finish the final repairs needed at the Ark Base further south.

This area was a secret space set aside as a storage and training area, especially built to connect to the Dragon Valley base, and was connected underground to that same base by a monorail line between two stations. There were also plans to further extend the line through to the Autobot City and the Ark bases.

For many years, Professor Wheeler and Doctor Chalmers had helped Adam build this place along with the rest of the entourage to get the work done. Now that it was close to activating the mecha units, they were asked to come back every once in a while to do systems checks on the units to ensure their full operational status should they would be needed at a moment's notice.

Every once in a while the operatives that Adam had placed amongst the staff of the University or the local High School would also make a check if the technicians were not available.

But they had to careful, Adam did not want the US Military finding out about the area just yet and were always watchful of their activities just in case they came under suspicion by any military personnel and would be followed into the underground area.

*

At Port Angeles High School, several students had been gathering and talking in length about the Summit and what it could have to do with them on their own after the media furore had erupted over at the University.

One group in particular was Laura and her friends.

"So how do you think they're gonna choose the pilots?" Asks Ryan. He had, along with several others in the school cafeteria, seen the news bulletin on the television live from the University about Project Messiah.

"I think it would be cool and all to be a pilot but it's not really my thing. I'm not the fighting type ya know." Comments Trevor.

"Personally I'd love to try it out. I think it would be a great adventure, but we don't know where to sign up even if we could?" Asks 'Lex.

Laura who was sitting next to her nods in agreement. "Most of us aren't even old enough yet anyhow. They said they would only consider sixteen to eighteen year olds as the minimum age and most of us are around fifteen. I wonder if we could talk to Ella and convince someone to let us have a go?" She thinks out loud.

Christine had not yet said anything as she was finishing her ice tea, but she did hear what Laura said and had an idea and so went and told the rest of the group who listened intently.

*

Upon arriving to Autobot City the delegates immediately got to work talking to Optimus prime and his group that had arrived from Cybertron. Ultra Magnus had been in communication with Optimus Prime on route to Earth to advise him or their arrival and went to join them as soon as he alighted with his team.

Even though the Roughnecks' members had returned home, various Autobots were ordered onto extra security details by Ultra Magnus as soon as the delegates had arrived with the military transport.

But not all of them were home at the moment, some were down at Dragon Valley base yet again, enjoying some well earned time off, making use of the vast resources and facilities that base had available. It had become a normal activity for the Autobot soldiers now to make use of those same facilities, as it was somewhere outside of their own base they could escape to that in part reminded them of their old home.

At the base, Ella was briefing Sound Track and Vanguard upon their return, meeting them as soon as they had reached the base and accompanied them inside. She occupied them with talk about the information that had been sent in regards to the invaders in Europe.

When Sunstar joined them she had passed along a data pad to Ella and explained that the program developed and added to this data would allow them to track and apprehend any invaders of the Dominion kind that may show up on Earth. She had worked with Starscream to put the finishing touches on the device.

Freefall had also been informed of Ella's plan to have Starscream take control of her team for the investigation of the area. She would accompany as support and allow her son, Nightfall; to remain as second in command and both would keep her optics on Starscream.

The Roughnecks would also accompany the group, but Ella had other ideas for the visiting Autobots. They had come down today to be shown something by Ella. The fact that events were happening the way they were now didn't change that, she would still send Freefall's team of jets and the remaining Roughnecks out to Europe to accompany the Spyhunters to investigate the situation.

Ella told them about what they had since seen on their satellite imagery and shown to all that were present in the conference room about the mission she had in mind for them.

She knew that in the past, the troubles they had with the Dominion would resurface now that they were here on Earth. They were even more dangerous here than on their home ground as they were close to Ella and her own base which made taking them down even more of a priority and the present Roughnecks team knew it.

She had also noticed that there were some human looking agents with them, not knowing whether they were pink skinned Nebulonians or human slaves or even Decepticons with Pretender shells, she assumed they fully intended to infiltrate their areas of interest using the appearance of the Earth species to their advantage.

They were obviously looking for any Matrices that might be here also. But why did they land in Europe? Why not near them? Perhaps they wanted to also gather some raw materials before leaving. If they had indeed made contact with Soundwave again then they already knew where Dragon Valley base was. Ella wondered many thoughts in regards to this, knowing Sound Track would pick up on all of them and take them into account for the team and the mission.

Ella looked around the room at all the mechs faces.

Sideswipe was snickering at Bluestreak, whom in the process of wanting to be included with everyone else in getting Biomodes had inadvertently received a female form and Sideswipe thought it was very hilarious, and Bluestreak didn't, already feeling very insecure about the abrupt change in gender.

"Stop laughing, it's not funny anymore." Bluestreak looked like she was on the verge of leaking fluids from her optics. As she had gained a female form in the Biomode, she had also regained a new female form when trying to return to her robot mode.

"Well we always knew you were a bit of a femme, but you have to admit that what happened is very funny." Laughed Sideswipe. Bluestreak continued to sulk.

Sideswipe wasn't the only one laughing. Jazz, Cliffjumper, Blaster, Smokescreen and Tracks were having a right old time about it till Ella told them to shut it as they were interrupting her talk to her team.

Sunstreaker was the only one of the Autobots not laughing and was sitting there quietly observing, obviously still annoyed at his brother over something. Ella did notice this and asked Sunstreaker, "Is there a problem?"

Sideswipe just looked at his twin for a second, and started to glare when Sunstreaker glared right back at him.

Sunstreaker then crossed his arms and said flatly "No."

"Well looks like you should find your brother a girlfriend Sideswipe, then you two won't have any more family quarrels eh?" Joked Blaster.

Tracks couldn't help himself in laughing slightly, "Ol' 'Streaker's never shown any interest in the female persuasion before, what makes you think he will now?" This got Tracks a swipe across the back of his head casing, but he was too quick for the yellow Reventon and got out of the way just in time.

"Maybe n'all out in'erfacing from yuirs truly woul' fix the lad up?" Retorts a familiar female voice from the doorway of the room that Sideswipe recognizes instantly.

Sideswipe looks up to see her familiar face and smiles broadly, despite the bad stench emanating from his new femme girlfriend.

"Hey handsome!" Burnout remarks.

But Ella has to hold her fingers over her nose. "Burnout please, despite your lecherous humour, could you go and cleanup before you come up here like that from the waste depository cleaning. I've told you before about it, now go, shoo, you're stinking us all out!"

"I dinnae see wha' the problem is? I'd gladly go stand ou' in th'rain but it melts b'fore it hits me armour!" She shrugs and then walks out, but grabs Sideswipe from his chair, "Ye can come have a wash too ye li'l dirtbot!"

Sideswipe doesn't bother to resist and instead smirks and waves goodbye to his friends and leaves with the femme being dragged along happily.

After they both leave Jazz comments, "She often come back from doin' work smellin' like that?"

Vanguard jokes. "Who says she has to do any work to smell like a rotting corpse!"

This gets a few laughs out of everyone, Vanguard then continues wafting her nose, and she turns to Ella and asks, "So which tank did you get her to clean today?"

Ella is amused and responds, "The one that none of you will go down and clean!"

Sound Track comments, "Remind me ya'll nevah't touch Burnout evah again." Some of the others were curious and Sound Track tells them, "We have some places on tha base that need cleanin' every once in a whahle. None of us want to do tha job ya'll but Burnout always gets stuck with tha punishment coz' she always gets intah trouble. So we reserve tha job just for her alone as getting' dirty doesn't seem ta bothah her."

Vanguard adds, "Which part? Getting dirty or being dirty? She's a perfect match for Sideswipe then!"

This got a muffled guffaw from Sunstreaker despite his annoyance at his brother and the jealousy he felt over not being able to spend as much time with him as he usually did. He didn't like Burnout either. He felt she had somehow taken his place and was pouting. He felt sorry for himself that he, whom he felt was better than his brother deserved to get a girlfriend before his brother did, but Sunstreaker knew how extremely pedantic he was about female attachments, however Sideswipe was not.

The thought of other femmes brought his attention to Sunstar when she entered the room and it made him smirk privately to himself.

She had come in from upstairs to report that the plane was ready for the Roughnecks and Freefall's team. The groups prepared themselves for their own little trip and started to board their own plane to go to Europe.

The Autobots started to get a little anxious as they thought they would be joining them but Ella held them back. "Just a moment." Says Ella putting her hands up. She faces the visiting Autobots for a moment. "I realise some of you are eager to join my team for the day and try out your new Biomodes in possible combat but not today. I have something I want to show you all."

Steelwind, currently on the base and about to leave shortly, had plenty of space to carry the Autobots who were still in their robot modes, all the way down south to northern Oregon to the location of the Ark.

They also had to leave Sideswipe behind as he had yet to return to their group after being taken elsewhere by Burnout.

*

"Aww, come on Laura, There's gotta be someone we can ask about the sign ups?" Asks Ryan.

"Yeah?" Christine joins in.

The group of friends had descended onto Dragon Valley base for the day. Ella had since allowed all of Laura's group free access to the base in order to visit the new friends amongst the mech's and femmes they had made there.

They came here today to see Ella and convince her to let them join the intake for the pilot program the University would be conducting. But unbeknownst to them they were already on Adam's list, and Laura knew about it. She had been told not say a word. Yet again she found herself keeping secrets from her friends. It was something she didn't like doing but at times it had been necessary considering how she had grown up.

When the time came she would be able to tell them the truth.

All that was on the base today were a bunch of mecha younglings in the recreation hall making use of the skate ramp that had been especially built for the mecha.

This ramp had gotten Christine, Ryan, and Roberts' attention immediately and joined them fervently once they found equipment that was their size. While Adrian, Aelya, Trevor, Alex and Laura found some seats to the side to watch their activities.

The group had instead settled for hanging out here with this new group they didn't know had been there all along, looking to make even more mecha friends.

*

Ella had escorted the Autobots off of Steelwind and helped unload the femme's cargo quickly by utilising her telekinetic skills to move the items out of the hold and over to an area where they were being carried inside almost straight away.

"Brings back memories don' it?" Exclaims Jazz as he takes a look at the entrance that was completely rebuilt to its former glory. Free of the rubble that had previously buried it

"Yeah." Stated Cliffjumper

"I thought this place had been completely buried, how'd they get it cleared up so soon?" Queried Tracks. He hadn't seen what Ella had done and had his question answered when Jazz indicated to what Ella was doing with Steelwind's cargo.

"Certainly not by standing around and wishing it away!" Said a gruff voice. The Autobots turned and saw the human they recognized as Bryan Rawson, he was known to them as their old friend Brawn but was still pretty much human. But since coming into Ella's circle, the old miner had been given cybernetically reinforced forearms as well as a strong and heavy skeletal structure that allowed him to lift a lot of weight, including part of Steelwind's cargo without help and with little effort.

They followed the cyborg inside and marvelled at how much progress had been made in such a short time, it was very nearly complete. Most to all of the heavy work had been completed, Prowl had given his helpers a reprieve and let them get started on the smaller things in the meantime.

He saw his old friends walk in and went over to greet them. He out of the group of seven formerly terminated Autobots, was the only one who had taken on his old robotic form thus far and was presently in this form overseeing the final construction of his, their, old home.

Several of the builders had been making use of Flashdance's horse animecha who had all volunteered to help, and there were plenty of them, a dozen or so spread around the place.

Ella stands aside while the Autobots talk to Prowl and he tells them of how much progress had been made in the repair work.

Jazz wonders out loud, "Ya think Prime'll let us move back in when it's all done?"

"I hope so!" Comments Blaster excitedly, "I sure miss this place!"

"Yeah, even though it ain't our real home, it'll always be a home t'me." Says Cliffjumper.

"Yeah!" Sighs a decidedly feminine voice.

Prowl looked at the femme curiously. She had Bluestreak's paintjob and also an obviously different vehicle mode, even though in a female robotic mode. "Wait? Bluestreak is that you?" Questions Prowl in wonder, on the verge of fritzing his logic circuits if it was indeed true that it was Bluestreak over the illogical appearance of his old friend.

"Um Yeah!" She puts her head down and starts scraping at the floor with one of her peds.

Prowl turns to Jazz and asks, "What happened to him, ah her? It doesn't make any sense?" But then turned around to look at Ella instead of waiting for Jazz's response. He knew Ella would have had something to do with Bluestreak's change in gender.

Ella was about to come over and give Prowl his explanation when something else happened.

Somewhere close to them, Henry and Bryan were working on a retractable pulse gun that they had affixed to the ceiling, with a bit of trouble. Bryan had finished his cargo moving and had volunteered to help Henry now. They were bickering about the fact that Ray and Jackson weren't here to do the fine technical stuff and had to do this themselves.

They were fixing the wiring for it when suddenly it comes online and shoots unexpectedly. It had locked onto Ella accidentally and as she had over to talk with Prowl. It tosses her clear across the room when it made contact with her mid torso. She didn't even bother to put up a protective energy shield when it happened.

*

At the base entrance, Freestyle had arrived from Colorado and needed some items from the Dragon Valley base that Flashdance had requested she collect and was then going to return to her undercover mission when she spotted Laura and her group on the base hanging around and having fun with the base's youngling entourage.

She has a silent smile to herself before she subspaces away her retrieved items and transforms from her Biomode to her robot mode in mid air. She then flies up through the levels to the airstrip and then out, back over the hills to her current mission helping to spy on the US Military at Colorado.

*


	36. Chapter 36 At The Ark

*At The Ark*

*

"Shouldn't we be doing something?" asks Bryan.

"Ella will be fahne." Answers Henry, confident in knowing it was best not to touch her and let her healing systems kick in on their own power, even though every fibre of his being wanted to rush in and help, as was his nature.

Bryan however had not been around her as much. "But are we going to just let her sit there and possibly bleed to death?"

"It's all we can do Bryan. Do ya remember th'brief about what Bioroid blood does ta human tissue?" Asks Henry.

Bryan knowing full well what it does having been briefed on it before comments, "Ok you've got a point." And he goes back to what he was doing.

Prowl had switched over to his Biomode and squatted next to Ella until she started to stir. While she had a gaping hole in the middle of her torso, she was still half conscious and moving and then began to get up. Her wound however quickly healed itself and appeared as if nothing had happened at all.

She got herself fully up off the floor and waived off Peter's offer to help her up. She looked around at the mess her clothes were in and was glad her blood had been reabsorbed back into her body. She was also glad someone had heavily cautioned the Autobots not to touch her or her blood while her wounds were healing.

She had gotten a few weird looks from the others as they thought she should have been dead, "It's quite alright, this isn't the first time this has happened!"

"Like the time one of Jack's experiments went off in your face." A surly but familiar voice said behind them, "And all but blew your face and nearly your entire head off." Ray gave Jackson, who was next to him a surly look and he smiled sheepishly, "That's when I found out about Ella's little blood predicament. I was still new to the base then, coming into his lab to treat them both and being exposed to her blood, and Jack had already been exposed in previous years and so was already immune to it." The Doctor sighs. "Even now he still finds a way to blow himself or others up in some way or another. Nothing much has changed."

Jazz laughs, "Good ol' Wheeljack."

"So when are you two going to join the merry land of mecha hood like Prowl has?" Asks Cliffjumper.

"Who says we haven't already!" Chimes in Jackson. "We just prefer to be this way. Henry is at the same level too, he's been with us since the American Civil War, and Ray here has been with us since last century."

"Then why haven't any of you been using your mecha forms? We haven't seen you in them at all?" Queries Tracks.

"No real need ta." Comments Henry flatly as he and Bryan put down the now disconnected weapon on the floor. Bryan starts working on the wiring and then Henry wanders over to join Jackson in the conversation, "But don' worry we'll be back when we need ta be. We just got some stuff ta do here first."

Ella interjects looking at both Ray' and Jackson, "You get that work done up north?" Knowing they were both up at Port Angeles checking up on the mecha still in the underground cavern under the University.

"Yeah." Says Ray flatly, "Everything's fine there for a while. And you?" Obviously concerned about Ella.

"Fine as usual. It'll take more than a measly cannon like that to kill me, you know that!"

"Well I am a Doctor after all. I have a right to be concerned."

"Yes but your wife is my Doctor not you. She'll have you for breakfast if you try and take her patients away from her; she is as bad as you are after all!"

"And I love her for it!" Ray smiles, "Anyway, Jack' let's go, we've got work to do."

"See you guys later." Jackson follows him off into one into the main control room to work on some wiring.

After they disappear, Ella asks the remaining group, "Its ok guys, go wander, take a look; I'd appreciate some feedback on the construction, and tell me what you think ok."

Heather had ridden up quietly on the mecha horse Quarterback and dismounted "Everything ok with you El'?" She was here today helping to organise and supervise Flashdance's animecha that were helping out.

"Yeah I'm fine, just a defence system malfunction."

She had just finished talking when Jackson who from the control room, working on a console, rewiring cables, had those same cables short out and zapped him with a high voltage of electricity and shut down the lights.

He had called out before passing out and Ray could be heard swearing at him as it happened.

"Can I get some slaggin' lights in here please?" Yelled the surly Doctor. He soon got a couple of mechs running in with their headlights on to help out so Ray could give Jackson some medical attention.

Jazz snickered at the fact, that even as human, Ratchet still commanded instant attention from other Autobots. He took advantage of the quiet as everyone had pretty much left the entry right before the lights went out and he wanted to talk to Ella. "I thought our old friends were all still human bar Prowl? They come up on my scanners as human anyways?" He queried.

Ella sat there in the half light being illuminated by Jazz's headlights and thought, and then told him, "Then it just goes to show you how sophisticated the techno organic material is that is in my blood. For those that choose conversion, it's refined, for those that aren't usually end up like Hot Rod or some of my Roughnecks team. The formula is refined and programmed from my own blood, making them appear human and undetectable."

Jazz smiles, "I guess that's fair enough. Thanks for doing all this by tha way, for bringin' our friends back for helpin' ta rebuild our old base an' all. I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say we really appreciate it."

"As do I give thanks." Replied Prowl in the dark.

"Jeez!" Exclaimed a startled Jazz, "Didn't even know you were there ol' buddy!"

In the half light Jazz catches Prowls smile and it makes him laugh.

"Both of you are quite welcome." Ella states to the both of them.

The lights flicker on again and everyone can get back to exploring the base. Ella would have joined them if not for the fact she was approached by Obliterator and some of his security crew who had been responsible for giving the Ark some protection since they started the rebuild and wanted to talk to her about some things. So she found somewhere where they could talk and left the Autobots to their exploring.

While wandering around the base, Jazz notices that some rooms they had no access to when they came online here back in 1984, were now easily accessible.

He had been joined by Sunstreaker and also Bluestreak, who was happily chatting away as normal, nothing had changed but her gender, she was still as chatty and slightly nervous as ever, and still a remarkable shot.

Between the two of them, Jazz and Sunstreaker were walking behind her and couldn't help but look over her new form, but the fact that it was still their old Bluestreak inside the new femme shell, did slightly disturb them.

It disturbed Sunstreaker a little more than it did Jazz so he thought of something to talk about to take his mind off of it, "How did they manage to rebuild the areas that were wrecked before? Do you think Ella used her nano technology and programmed them to rebuild those areas based on the blueprints you gave her and Prowl?"

"Could have?" Muses Jazz. He wasn't paying much attention as Bluestreak was yakking in his audios about the pre-eminent differences between his old form and his new one and Jazz found it kind of fascinating. But he still tried to listen to Sunstreaker also, "We still don' know exactly what level of tech she uses but it's obviously way ahead of ours. I mean look what happened to her today, got shot through the midsection and healed like it was nothin', blood reabsorbed an' all! Kinda weird?"

"Yeah, wish I could do that," Commented the Yellow Reventon, "Then I wouldn't have to worry about getting my paint job scratched up by Sideswipe when we wrestle right after I've just had it painted."

"Yeah that'd help." He noticed that it had gotten conspicuously quiet. "Hey where'd Bluestreak go?" Jazz noticed that the dark silver femme had disappeared.

"Should we look for her?" Asked Sunstreaker.

"I'm sure she'll be fine." Jazz commented. "We might as well check tha rest of this place out."

They continued to walk down the corridors. "So Jazz is something going on between you and that blue femme, Sound Track or whatever her name is?"

"Heh!" He muses, "It's been a while since I've gotten this much conversation outta you Sunny!"

He grunts, not liking nicknames, "You're lucky it's you calling me that you know."

Jazz smiles at his comrade, "And yeah somethin's goin' on 'tween me and tha blue lady. So what 'bout you an' that white femme Sunstar, I know you've bein' eyein' her off Sunny?"

Before Sunstreaker would have given him an answer, they had found themselves in the old control room where Teletraan One's system was situated. And Sunstreaker saw something rather unusual, as did Jazz.

Jazz had gone to great lengths to convince Optimus Prime to let this project go ahead. He had convinced his leader not out of sentimentality of their old base but due to the strategic aspects of rebuilding the base and he was glad of the Prime's decision to have Teletraan One transported to Earth and reinstalled in its old operating system before having originally been in Iacon.

Teletraan One however no longer had a use as Iacon's central computer as a new one had been built and installed in its place in the time it had been on Earth, so it only felt right to return the computer to the old base and reinstall it in the Ark.

What the two mech's saw was a human form hologram looking over the work that Ray' and Jack were doing.

Ray having helped out Jackson, had gotten him back to working, fixing up the wiring for Teletraan One to ensure the main computer was operational and wired right and there was a human hologram watching them and making comments if they weren't getting something right.

"How about that T'?" Asks Jackson.

'_That connection is completely functional. Thank You Wheeljack_.' The hologram spoke.

"Wait? Am I seein' things or is that our Teletraan One, the hologram I mean?" Asks Jazz puzzled.

'_Correct.'_ Finished a voice from the hologram in front of Jazz. _'At the moment we are just having some minor wiring difficulties. And it does not help the fact that Jackson keeps zapping himself, trying to help us finish the work and hindering my systems by giving it constant residual feedback.'_

Jackson laughs coyly, "I can't help it can I? Seems to be my lot in life!"

"Among other things!" Says Tracks as he walks in. "I found a few strays wandering around." He notes to Jazz. He had the missing femme Bluestreak with him as well as Sideswipe.

"How'd that slagger get here?" Asks Sunstreaker.

He glares at his brother then says, "One of the tech's at Dragon Valley base gave me this." Sideswipe hands over the hand held warping device to Jazz to look it over.

"What's this?" Asks Jazz curiously.

"Kind of like a mobile, hand held orbital bouncer."

"And they gave it to you freely?" Questions Ray' with his body half deep into the wire panels. He gets himself out and looks up at Jazz, "Hand that over, something like that should never be in the hands of someone like him." He nods in Sideswipe's direction.

Jazz looks at Sideswipe and shrugs, then hands over the device.

"Why'd you do that for? He's human now, it's not like he outranks us anymore." Sideswipe whispers to Jazz.

"I heard that you red wretch." Replies Ray' haughtily, which got a snicker from Tracks and Sunstreaker, "But just because I'm like this now doesn't mean I'm not like I was before so remember that."

And he swiftly throws up a wrench at Sideswipe. He dodges the first one but hadn't seen the second and starts rubbing his head case after getting hit, "Yep that's definitely our Ratchet!"

"And don't you go forgetting it." He says pointing a hand with a wrench in it at Sideswipe.

Sideswipe still rubbing his head casing, mutters, "You know I think his aim has improved!" This had the other mechs laughing.

"So this is Teletraan One's permanent home now?" Asks Bluestreak noticing the unfamiliar hologram.

'_Affirmative.'_ Says the hologram again, which startles Tracks, Sideswipe and Bluestreak.

"Whoah!" Exclaims Sideswipe.

The Hologram continues speaking, _'While I have been reinstalled in this system and returned to a functional capacity. I have also been upgraded with Alliance technology to operate alongside my own Cybertronian programming. As a result I am now a fully functioning sentient entity within the confines of this bases control system.'_

"Can anyone repeat that in plain Cybertronian?" Says Tracks sarcastically, not getting much of what the computer hologram says.

"What Teletraan One means Tracks is that it's like one of us now, 'cept it ain't got a body like ours, its body is the base itself." Jazz replies.

'_Correct Jazz.'_ Says Teletraan One.

"Cool!" Comments Sideswipe.

"So we can talk to our old computer like its one of us now?" Asks Bluestreak.

The Hologram nods at the femme.

"I don't really see the difference than what it was like before." Comments Sunstreaker.

The computer ignores Sunstreaker's comment before stating, _'If you do not mind, I must return to my passive mode and dissolve this hologram. My systems are not yet at maximum operating capacity, and being in this highly active holographic state drains my backup energy supply. They have yet to attach my energy control system.'_ Teletraan One's hologram disappears and Ray' and Jackson go back to working on the wiring under the control panels.

Ella walks in and talks to them. "If you boys don't mind I would like to escort you all back to your home base now." She wanders over to the console and kneels down next to Raymond and puts her hand out. He looks at her for a moment and wonders what she wants then realises he has the hand held warping device and hands it back to her, "It's a good thing that Sideswipe was sent here with this isn't it Ray'? As it happens, Prowl sent Steelwind back to Dragon Valley already for more supplies and they are without a ride back so this device will come in handy!" She grins.

Ray looks at her flatly and points at Sideswipe, "Just don't let that blockhead get hold of it; he would wreak all sorts of unimaginable havoc with it and those pranks of his."

"Me?" Questions Sideswipe innocently, "Never!"

"Yeah right!" Raymond comments snidely before returning to his wiring work.

"It's alright Raymond. I have enough trouble with Skywarp playing nasty pranks back at my own base when he is bored. It's why I keep him occupied as much as I can when he's there! I understand what idle hands can do."

Ella giggles to herself and then leads the present mechs out to the entrance and waits for everyone to gather together and presses the button to activate the warp device and returns the Autobots to Autobot City.

When they all arrive, Jazz moves off with some of the others to find Ultra Magnus to let him know where he had just come from and pass along some information.

Ella asks the twins to both stay behind and tosses the warping device to Sideswipe, "I know you'll probably end up abusing this anyway Sideswipe, but perhaps for now you can use it for yourself and your brother so you can go somewhere and talk about the problems you have been having lately, as I'm sure neither Burnout nor Sunstar would like you two fighting."

"What's Sunstar got to do with this?" Asks Sunstreaker.

"Nothing," She replies, "But you may find out if you two sit and have a brother to brother talk."

Sunstreaker grunts at having to listen to someone else dictate the importance of familial ties to him and watches as she teleports herself out of Autobot City. This puzzled the twins, not knowing that she was able to teleport herself under her own steam.

They were left alone together and succumbed to Ella's idea and went to find somewhere to talk with the device Ella left with them.

*

Ella arrived back at the base a little weary, but not for long. Her system was still in a little shock from the weapons blast. Even though she had an exponential generator for a power core, she still at times felt the weight of mortality on her body and also her age.

She tolerated being told off by Heartia in the medical bay and sat back and relaxed taking full advantage of the time alone.

But she wasn't alone for long.

Laura and her friends were still here on the base. She saw some new people amongst the visitors and wasn't going to scold Laura or whoever had brought them inside the base. She just sighed as she didn't get too long to spend alone.

She already knew what they were there for. They all stood in front of her bed right now looking hopeful, except Laura. All of them she knew, Christine, Laura, Adrian, Aelya, Robert, Ryan, 'Lex, Trevor and Hannah, were all perfect candidates for Project Messiah. She smiles.

Laura didn't say a word. She just stood at the back of the group hoping her friends didn't turn around and start asking her questions.

"Laura, go ahead and take your friends for a full tour around the base or something?" Calls out an unusually calm and pleasant Heartia.

Laura knew better than to questions the head of the base's medical department, especially with the old femmes temper. She gathers up her group of friends despite the protests and the questions they were all trying to ask at once and they all leave, leaving Ella finally to some peace and quiet the others in the main command centre.

*

In a military installation in Colorado, a solitary person was watching the US President's news conference from Washington DC. The President was publicly announcing the existence of Project Messiah and how both the military and the public were going to be involved in it and that they would work in tandem with each other.

The General in his office was rather annoyed at the announcement. He wanted this whole mecha thing to be solely under the control of the military. It had been a bonus that this Adam Drake had come forward with the technology and the funds to take their own project further than even he could have imagined and now he had to deal with this. He wasn't a happy General.

He sighed and put his hands over his face. He had to admit defeat on this particular front, as it was obvious that no matter how much he objected, no matter how many strings he was going to pull, he couldn't fight what was now happening and it was going to happen whether he liked it or not.

He had to remember back to the old days when he was just a teenager, when the Autobots had first shown up on Earth and how involved the military was with ridding the planet of both sides of the mechanoid's war. It had taken time for them to learn, but they saw that Optimus Prime and his soldiers were the good guys, and did their best to get rid of the Decepticons under the command of Megatron.

That was why their secret project was formed in the first place. After years of studying the transformers they hadn't gotten any closer to succeeding in what they desired, until Adam Drake came along, who would've thought the guy was using alien technology for the creation of their mecha units...

The General also remembered how adamant he was as a youth not to have anything to do with the military, but that was before Nathaniel Fairborn encouraged him to attend a military college after high school. He had never intended to in the first place, but it was that decision to do so that had estranged him from his family. He had not spoken to his family in a fair while and hoped he could reconcile with them at some stage.

There was a knock on his door. "Come in." He answers.

"General, those people have arrived; the ones that Mr. Drake said would be arriving to help us to recalibrate our mecha units for active duty." Comments the Lieutenant.

"Thank you for coming and letting me know, Lieutenant. I will come down to meet with them shortly." He gets up and then asks, "Wait before you go, is Captain Fairborn still about?"

"Yes she is." The soldier answers.

"Tell her to meet me in the control centre to meet with our new visitors." The General watches the Lieutenant leave then follows shortly behind, grabbing his jacket on the way out, and walks to the meeting room where the new visitors are waiting for him.

*

The plan Decellion had of collecting raw materials from the area she had chosen from space was going smoothly. She was currently monitoring her workers progress.

With many of them disguised in human forms, they wouldn't be easily distinguishable from the native inhabitants of this planet, and that would work to her advantage.

As for her other plan, it could wait a little longer. She knew that Ella would be at her base trying to protect it herself and most likely knew she was already here on Earth and sending her soldiers out to confront her. She figured if she had them all come to her so far from the Dragon Valley base, she could quickly change her location and take a team and attack the base in the USA and take what she wanted with no problems.

Ordinarily she would just walk right in and take what she wanted, she had more than enough power to do it, but she couldn't afford for Ella to sense her coming with even the slightest drop of her own power active, so she would have to do this the hard way.

On Charr, Galvetron was having second thoughts about Decellion's duplicity and was monitoring her activities while on Earth.

While she was away, he could think more clearly and knew what it was he had to do. He would have to go to Earth and exert his authority over her and her soldiers and take back his own soldiers she had commandeered and put her in her place. A femme was not going to lord herself over him.

He knew what she was up to now as Cyclonus and Scourge were able to spy on her freely now under orders from Galvetron. Soundwave was doing petty much the same for him, being able to get as close to Decellion as he had.

*

When Ella walked into the command centre, she could see it was a little crowded.

The Dinosaurers and the Dinobots had returned to the base in Nova's ship to Dragon Valley Base.

Without being prompted Bonecrusher explains they had followed Decellions signal here to Earth and she and Nova had come back to assist with any upcoming battles that would need to be fought.

Ella agreed. With the rest of the teams off base and the civilians on alert in case the base was attacked unexpectedly, the presence of the Dinosaurer and Dinobots teams would be a welcome safeguard.

Bonecrusher readily agrees to Ella's ideas but Grimlock objects and this makes Bonecrusher sigh.

Grimlock prostrates himself, "No, me go where me want to go, and me say Dinobots go where they want to too."

He gets a sideways look from Bonecrusher and also a snarl. She was in her T Rex mode and was face to face with his T Rex mode. "You will listen to Ella's idea and you will stay here on this base and remain on patrol and also on standby or my team and I will not leave you anyone to fight, do you understand?" She growls.

"Me Grimlock no scared of femme Dino even though you bigger than me. Me Grimlock stay on base not because you say so but because Me Grimlock want fight, so me stay, and Dinobots stay too, to fight later." He snarls back to her.

Bonecrusher turns to leave seeing that her gruff face to face talk to Grimlock worked and so goes off to talk strategy with her team and Ella can't help but laugh.

*

Elsewhere, in Europe.

Sound Track is talking strategy, "Perhaps ya'll we can make use of that environment tah ouah advantage."

"Of course." adds Heatwave, the group leader of the Spyhunters. Most of my team are out scouting the area to see what information they can gather. They are after all the best spies in existence."

Sound track sighs at her ex-bondmate's over inflated ego and wishes she didn't have to be here with him right now.

Vanguard knew this and adds, "We also need to come up with a viable idea to make sure these Dominion mechanoids and Decepticons don't cause any harm to the people and environment."

It was the distraction Sound Track needed as it launched the conversation in a different direction.

Burnout had joined them late after they had left Dragon Valley, making use of the warping devices they had access to and added her own idea, "Does this thingy Stella an' 'Screamer made, work?"

"Yeah it does." Replied Vanguard, pointing to the screen Joyride was watching. She was monitoring all the Dominion mecha with the device attached to their scanners through their ship which was hidden under some dense foliage of the forest under a cloak.

Sound Track added, "Whahle Freefall an' her lot engage the Dominion soldiers ya'll we should be able tah get in an' cause some damage."

*

In the rec room, Laura and her friends where sitting back and relaxing, watching the news conference on television when the others had walked in from the command centre.

The young human adults had not seen the Autobots walk in at first as they were focused on the screen.

"So you think we could all join this Project Messiah thing. You think they'll take just anybody?" asks Ryan excitedly.

Haven't we been over this already Ryan?" Replies Christine.

"Hey what about you Hannah?" Asks Laura of her cousin, "Hannah?", But she discovers her cousin is fixated on someone and she turns around to see why, "Oh no!"

_'Hannah has seen him now,'_ She thinks, _'God help us all!'_

"What's wrong with your cousin?" Asks Lex.

"Nothing that a little rabid fan girl ecstasy can't fix! Eh Hannah?" But her cousin was too quick for her to grab, "Hannah get back here!" She calls out loudly.

Cliffjumper and his friends had come back to the base under orders from Optimus Prime, in order to help Ella with the situation in Europe and the teens were still on the base hanging out when they came back.

Laura's cousin Hannah had sauntered up to where Cliffjumper had taken a seat and just stands there looking at him. "Um, is there something I can help you with, uh?" not knowing her name, Laura has walked up behind her and tries to drag her away from Cliffjumper's table without success.

"Her name is Hannah, she's my cousin and she is a major fan of yours Cliffjumper, doesn't like any other Autobot but you." States Laura embarrassed.

"Really?" He asks very interested.

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe are in another booth, siting together having finally fixed up their problems and Sideswipe comments, "This I gotta see!"

And his brother adds, "Cliffjumper has a fan? You're right, this we have to see!"

Hannah has been trying to get a word out but can't and ends up fainting from the effort.

"Uh, is there some thing wrong with your cousin's processor?" He asks Laura before leaning over to talk to Jazz, "Is that even normal for humans to do that?" He asks Jazz quietly.

Jazz just bursts out laughing and Cliffjumper scratches his head casing, "Geez I hope she's not one of those fan girls that always writes us weird letters through that website we hang out on?" He comments.

"She probably is ya know!" Comments Laura as she tries to pick up her fainted cousin. Laura finally succeeds in doing so and takes her back over to where she and her friends are sitting.

"You mean that the member names on that Transformers forum you guys have are real?" Questions Ryan.

"Sure they are kid, but we don' get much of a chance ta get on there an' chat ya know." Answers Jazz. "We do have ta work, but those two have been on there plenty of times, more than tha rest of us!" He points to the twins, "An' so has Hound an' Bumblebee. I used ta be too busy ta get on there but I got plenty of time now that 'Magnus is back ta bein' tha boss of Autobot City now."

Ella having only just walked in tells Sideswipe of Burnout's activities on that forum, and Sideswipe suddenly spits out what he was drinking. Sunstreaker can't contain himself.

"That was her?" Asks Jazz.

"I take it then that Sideswipe shared all those private messages she wrote to him with everyone?" Queries Ella.

"Uh yeah!" Sideswipe says wiping the excess energon from his faceplate, "If I'd known that it was her I wouldn't have shown them around. That was some pretty dirty and full on stuff we talked about."

Ella smirks at his comment, "Well at least you two are going out now. All you have to worry about is who your brother will end up with."

"Yeah!" Sideswipe playfully hits his brother in the shoulder plate and Sunstreaker smirks, happy that he and his brother are on proper speaking terms again, irregardless of what had happened lately.

*


	37. Chapter 37 Preparing For A Fight

*Preparing For A Fight*

*

In Colorado, the General had ordered Captain Fairborn to see him after he had briefed the new team members that would be working with the base at Adam Drake's request to assist with the mecha units and the pilots being trained for them, before he sent her on her way.  
Unknown to him however, was that these visiting scientists were actually members of a team called the Roughnecks, specifically Flashdance and Freeway on this base, while Tempest and Landslide were with Adam elsewhere, they keeping an eye or two on things until Adam would arrive. The General's chief of staff had gone over their credentials and found them in order, so there was nothing to make them suspicious of their undercover aliases.  
Captain Fairborn was assigned to travel out to the Port Angeles base to accompany the final transport of items and equipment from that base to this one. Not all of the units and other things had been transported as yet and the Alliance delegates had gotten wind of it and wanted to see the Port Angeles base as well as the University campus that was now the talk of the country.

The General was sure that Adam had persuaded the President to allow the visit to the Port Angeles base so he could show off his project to the ones who probably organised Adam building the mecha units to begin with. He had decided to have Captain Fairborn sent as she was used to dealing with Alien Delegates, having done so for the Military for years.

*

The Delegates in question were the same ones that were currently visiting with Optimus Prime and his soldiers on the Autobot City base. The talks had finished and the group were being transported to the Port Angeles base where they would tour around before being shown out to Colorado by Captain Fairborn and her transportation.

After the Delegates had left Optimus Prime had turned his attention to Dragon Valley base and sent a team to assist with the Earth's recent hidden alien invaders. Ella and her team had assisted him and his Autobots in the past and he felt it necessary to return the favour, particularly since many of his soldiers spent a fair amount of recreational time at Ella's base on their days off.

*

Ella was in the control room of Dragon Valley base. She had allowed the team that Optimus Prime had sent to assist in running the communication equipment to link the base to her teams that were in the Caucasus Mountains, spying on the Dominion and the Decepticon entourage.

The group leaders had not yet engaged anyone in battle as they were gaining as much information as they could by staying hidden and gathering intelligence as to why the aliens were here on Earth.

The Autobot team were somewhat peeved they had not been allowed by Ella to go and assist directly, but Ella didn't want a battle for now and had relayed this to Sound Track. Optimus had given them orders to take heed of any directions they were given by Ella, and so they waited.

Her choice for not wanting a fight was due to the fact she wanted as many personnel to protect the base if need be and also have her teams return to the base at a moments notice if they were needed to. So right now observation and intelligence gathering was paramount.

She sat and thought about the defences of the base, and let her mind wash over every section, thinking about each area in turn, some more than others. She knew that when Decellion had decided she'd had enough of the area she was in now, she would take her attack to what she was really after, Ella's base, and she would come in hard and fast and get what she to came to Earth for.

The Dragon Valley base had its own entrances to the hidden structure, but those were all hard to get to from the outside, Ella knew this, thinking about its defences.

The entire underground base was connected to both large and small areas incorporating secret passages and causeways between each individual area and level that intertwined in every little hidden area of the base inside the big mountain.

It was a virtual maze for those who used any of the escape shafts, but everything essentially led up, making it easy for anyone to get out if they knew how but near impossible to get back in again without proper knowledge.

Ella knew the deep underground areas were covered. The lower part of the base was deep underground and led down for about five miles to an area that was occupied by alien individuals that Ella knew was there, down past the biodome and through all the caves beyond.

There was something hidden deep within the caves of that area that they were protecting, it was the reason they were allowed to stay there. The Cybredeon were originally transported here to Earth millions of years ago with the ship they came in, but that ship, was now part of Dragon Mountain and was now the base Ella commanded. What they were protecting was Ella's secret as well as that of the high counsel of the Alliance.

Up in the higher parts of the base, was what she was worried about, specifically the aerial part of the base. It was where Soundwave had gotten out from and on occasion Starscream had gotten out of also and so was the weak point she wanted to focus on. It was where she had stationed the Dinosaurers, in and around the aerial transport bay which was situated high above the base around the peak of the mountain.

She figured putting the heavy hitters in and around that area would help to slow down Decellion, but she knew it wouldn't for long.

The other entrances to the base, the main entrance from the roads outside, were giant transport elevators, four in total, large enough to lower, two rows of six heavily laden semi-trucks, abreast, into and out of that main entrance, taking a full ten minutes from either the entrance or the main entry foyer of the base of the base. The shafts of the elevators could also be a weak point so she kept them fresh in her mind for a strategy.

She noted as she scanned her mind over that area that Optimus Prime had arrived with the rest of his team to assist.

He had contacted her previously that he would come down and help after being apprised of the situation. Optimus thought that an inside installation to draw the enemy into and defend from would be a better area to fight in as it was away from the general public and so less humans would inevitably be hurt.

As Optimus arrived, he had forgotten just how big the entrance area of this old alien ship turned outpost base was. The entry area of the base was where all ground transport and cargo was unloaded and sorted. The area was immense; the size of three football fields could easily fit into it. There were two areas the same size off to both the left and right of the main entry.  
To the left side, were three units, all roughly the size of one football field each; The Art Studio, Engineering and the Medical Centre.  
To the other side were the Garage and storage units that stored all the catalogued cargo unloaded from the trucks. All storage that came in by plane or rail was also moved to here.  
He was met by Prowl and his entourage. They had been asked to return to the base due to what was happening. Ella's talk with Obliterator had involved organising his team to stay and guard the Ark while this was all going on so Prowl and his team could return to the valley base and help defend it. The old war machine and his team weren't terribly happy with being left out of the battle that they knew would be coming but they understood the logic of it. If the Dragon Valley base fell, at least his team was still active and could provide outside help if required, and so they had stayed down south in Oregon.

Ella had also given an order for all civilians to evacuate the base. No civilians actually lived in her base, except family members of her own teams. Others did secretly come through here quite often from offworld for supplies, refuelling and recreational purposes. She had officially labelled the place off limits for all civilians until it was safe to open the doors again.

The only ones who had objected vehemently to being asked to leave were the families of the soldiers who actually lived and worked from the Dragon Valley base.

She had also shut down the freight train line that ran through the base. The rail line ran right through the middle of the entry foyer of the base. A private steam train line extended out from Port Angeles and ran all the way to the Drake Manor Estate above, a loop line that then returned to Port Angeles. This was a line that separated off of the main one to the south of the Port Angeles train line, which ran through the base to load and unload.

She let her mind follow Optimus and Prowl from the end of the foyer to the halls that led to the control room. At the end of the foyer were driveways on other side of a round room, the rec room as it was commonly known. The driveways on the outside were large enough to have two trucks abreast on each, these extended to the upper and lower levels of the base. And around these driveways, were walkways allowing passage to the back part of the base behind the rec room. They in turn led to the control room beyond it.

At the back of the rec room was a training amphitheatre that they had to walk past to get to the control centre. At the back of the rec room was an overhanging balcony that extended over the top of the hallway at the back of the rec room that they were now passing through. Some of prime's group paused to look at the arena as they had not yet seen this part of the base or hadn't been here at all. The arena was surrounded by seating, much like an outdoor theatre from ancient human times, but with seating space for large and small creatures, mechanoid or organoid.

The control room was located beyond. It was housed above the arena which was in itself immense and so most opted to use the elevators to reach the control centre rather than traverse the stairs to get to it.

Part of the control centre housed the controls for hard light holograms for the training area below and had a viewing screen also. The console controlled the pit below, and could change the area using high range nanotechnology, from a combat training arena, to a grass covered sports field, to a gymnasium or even to an ice rink. This arena was roughly the same size as the entry foyer, and was mainly used by the transformer residents for combat training with holographic simulators in operation.

The crew came walking into the control room where Ella stopped her mind scan of the base and went to greet them.  
For the most part, Ella had advised Optimus to send his team down to wait in the rec room until they were ready to be utilised or assigned an area. Not all the Autobots that Optimus had sent here to Dragon Valley were in the rec room, some were around the control room making use of their skills and learning how to operate her base from this control room.

Ella had assured Optimus that the newly refurbished Ark and also Autobot City would not be a target right now as Decellion would not be interested in Cybertronians unless she confronted them directly here on this base as this would be her target. What she was after was here. He knew she had a team in place protecting the Ark and he had left Ultra Magnus and his team, the Wreckers, as well as well as the Protectobots at Autobot City just in case they were needed.

He had left Elita One in command back on Cybertron and brought along some of his old Earth team as well as the Aerialbots when he came to Earth to talk to the Delegates and had also brought the same team along now.  
Down in the rec room was where all the noise was. Some of the Autobots were relaxing and talking.  
The lower area of the rec room was split into four areas, of a roughly octagonal shape. The entry from the foyer of this room was the general area, for all sized individuals, facing the entry foyer of the base. Off to either side of the main entry from the foyer, there were two separate areas for those who didn't want to associate with each other or for those who wanted some privacy. The back quarter was for the storage of the bar supplies, while the bar itself was situated in the centre of the room and went all the way around except for where it connected to the storage area.

Most of the 'bots here were in the main area all talking amongst themselves waiting for the word to go out and fight, knowing it was only a matter of time now since they had noticed that their leader, Optimus Prime had arrived on the base by request.

*

It had taken several hours for the journey from the Colorado Military installation to the base in Port Angeles for Captain Fairborn and her entourage to arrive at their destination.  
Captain Fairborn had taken part of her team straight to the command centre of the base in order to meet the Delegates and get it over with. While the rest of them went straight to the storage areas to start loading the supplies they came for.

The General of the base, Alexander Price, was fully aware of what was now going on at his base. As he was one of the ones who had organised to have the mecha units moved to another base under orders from Washington DC. He had welcomed the orders to have everything moved, as he was a family man and wanted to protect all that he had left, his daughter. But then the news of the training centre at the University had come to light and having that so close disturbed him.

He knew his daughter would be eligible for that. Even though she wasn't old enough, her intelligence and scientific studies would certainly have her considered.

He however did not know that his daughter had made friends with a group of teenagers that were associated with the Dragon Valley base and its mecha residents and were on a short list of young people that were going to be considered for the civilian mecha piloting group regardless of their age in the long run.

It was a reason why all these youngsters had been brought together at the high school in the first place, as it was a long term plan of Adam Drake's to do so.

*

Out in the Caucasus Mountains of Eastern Europe, Sound Track, Heatwave and their respective teams were still watching the enemy.

One member of the group who was monitoring their activity from their mobile command post was Joyride. She was thinking about the occasion when Ella had her go down and visit the Cybredeon, hidden deep underneath the Dragon Mountain base.

Joyride was quite often used to being asked by Ella to undertake missions like this one alone. She was a communications specialist but also a purveyor of fine arts, having studied Earth's history for over 10,000 years and also knew about what had led to them being there, even though she didn't like going to visit them, they were very intimidating to her even if they were big and gentle except when aggravated, she still didn't feel at ease. Being that this pack of Cybredeon, their existence was unknown to just about everyone on the planet and the aliens preferred it that way.

Ella had asked her to go down to the Queen's cave and have her pack prepare just in case of invaders wanting to come into their territory. It was a bonus to Ella that they happened to be there as their presence protected something that Ella's enemies would most likely go after if they knew it was there.

Only one of her enemies knew what could be there and that was Decellion.

The Cybredeons were protecting a kind of temple that housed a device capable of projecting a beam of energy into space that was capable of destroying not only planets but also suns. This device was the same as one that was once operational on Cybertron.

Surrounding it were connection units where the Matrices could be attached and utilised as the power behind the weapons beam. Ella knew if Decellion got her hands on the blueprints or saw enough of it to enable her to make her own; it would be trouble for the Alliance.

So far during all the millions of years that the Alliance had been at war with the Dominion, not one of them had been able to get close enough to one of these devices in order to copy its make, something always happening before then.

It was also a device of the same make that Ella herself had been put into and used as a weapon when Sigma was still pre-eminent during the wars of the past in the Alliance, but Sigmas weapon was no longer operational, still deeply hidden under the planets surface on what was now Cybertron.

There had once been an entire city on the spot where the mountain now was, but in days long past, about one million Earth years ago, a fight with the Dominion on the planet had destroyed that city.

The temple was also the entrance to this planets core computer and Ella couldn't afford to have Decellion get access to that either.

The ship that was now the base had crashed on Earth before that, directly above the secret underground temple built by the Angellion and had eventually been absorbed into the landscape over time. The base was later found again after that particular war and a presence re-established by Ella and her team.

The Cybredeon Queen hadn't taken kindly to be called upon for a fight, but was glad of the warning. Generally the entire pack of these aliens were metamorphic telepaths, but they had no interest in the world around them and so shut all but the thoughts of their own out and kept to themselves, which meant Ella had to send someone with a message to them or go along herself.

Joyride was called out of her stray thinking when the camouflaged plane that the Spyhunters had arrived in blew up. Only she and one other from the Spyhunters team were presently in the jet and so it would take some time for everyone else to get to the plane, especially if they got cut off.

The jet they were using was a large cargo plane from the base with reinforced Deltronian armour plating and also a cloak device. It could take the weapons fire and was still holding its cloak very well, for now.

The Spyhunters own plane had been discovered first. When a group of Decepticons came across its cloak visage while on patrol, they wasted no time in getting rid of it using Dominion tech to do so, without even waiting on any orders from anyone then moved swiftly to see if any more were in the area.

The three teams had no choice but to bail. They had been discovered. But they had managed to gather quite a fair bit of intelligence regarding their enemy at least.

Freefall's team had been on standby watching in case they were needed and then quickly joined in, picking off stray soldiers that came their way.

Despite her orders from Ella, Freefall had refused to allow Starscream control of her team for such a delicate situation and this had irritated him not having the control he felt he deserved. In the end Freefall had cut off his vocaliser so he couldn't make a noise. And when the fighting broke out they took off and joined in the fight in the air.

Heatwave gathered up his own team and had them make for the jet also. The one thing that he had going for him despite his arrogance and egotistical demeanour was the fact he was a brilliant fighter and spy and valued each member of his team as if it were he himself, he never left anyone behind. And so he was the last into the jet when his team arrived at the hiding place with the Decepticons and Dominion soldiers not far behind.

The remaining Roughnecks however had been on the other side of the alien built compound when the Spyhunter jet had exploded. When Sound Track had issued orders for them to return to the jet, they had gotten cut off. They had arrived after the Spyhunters team and so, were on the other side of the fighting line.

Vanguard did her best to expand her shield to protect the group, while Burnout did the most damage, and helped to clear a line to the jet, while Sound Track, Sunstar and Ranger brought up the rear with cover fire.

And when they were all inside the jet and ready to go, Sound Track got into the cockpit and prepped for flight. Sunstar tended to the wounded as best she could while take off was initiated. They quickly took off for home as fast as the jet would allow them.

Not long after take off they were discovered and their cloak was disabled due to several barrages from the Dominion structure down below that found the jet on its scanners.

Freefall took the opportunity to utilise her flying team and orchestrated an attack pattern that ended in the gun turrets of the weapons below being destroyed.

It was some time before the back cargo doors of the jet could be opened to let in Freefall's team. They had to remain outside to shoot down all the attackers that followed and deflect all the weapons blasts that were fired upon the jet until they were out of range or left alone.

While on route Sound Track made a call back to Dragon Valley, and both she and Freefall made a report to Ella of the situation. Heatwave, being who he was just had to give Ella all the information his team had gathered before they got to Dragon Valley, even thought Ella said it could wait.

*

In the rec room, the bored Autobots who were waiting were entertaining themselves with a movie on the projection screen that someone had found.

That had been Sideswipe. In becoming bored he had started searching every nook and cranny in the rec room to see what he could find to try and entertain himself. But while he had watched the start of the movie he had moved off when he found some video gaming units next door so he and Sunstreaker had become engrossed in that for the time being.

When the current movie had finished Jazz moved to put another in the disc reader to try and pass the time.

When he had sat back down and the others waiting had settled to watch another movie, Cliffjumper walked in with Prowl. They had both been in the control room, mainly because Prowl couldn't sit still for long enough to watch a movie and he wanted to know how the teams in Europe were doing.

Jazz noticed them come in and went to chat with them.

"So, any news?" He asks.

Prowl answers, "We have just received word that the teams are returning due to the fact they had been discovered."

"Yeah they got shot up so now they're coming back." Comments Cliffjumper.

Jazz noticed Prowl had his attention on a data pad in his hands. "Wha's s'at Prowler?" He asks.

Prowl looks up from his reading as though distracted, "Oh this is just the information that the Spyhunters managed to gather from the Decepticons and Dominion in Europe. I'm going through it to see if a viable battle plan can be formulated to fight them should they show up here as per Ella's expectation of Decellion's supposed intentions."

"Cool!" Comment Jazz. "Good luck with that buddy."

While Cliffjumper goes to sit down, Blaster saunters over and asks, "Did I hear right? Is the team returnin'?"

"Relax Blaster ol' buddy, Flash' ain't with 'em!" Jazz replies coolly. "She's workin' somewhere undercover I was told."

"Aww, Oh well!" He remarked, "Guess I better go see what the twin terrors are up to?"

"Try not to get yourself beaten up by Sunstreaker again eh!" Snickers Cliffjumper who was sitting next to Mirage and Trailbreaker on the nearest booth seats.

"Kiss my aft short stuff!" Blaster says snidely before walking off to find the twins.

One thing Blaster didn't like was people reminding him of the fact that he and Sunstreaker didn't like each other much but tolerated each others presence due to Blaster and Sideswipe being friends. But one time he had gone too far with a verbal tease and found himself alone with no Sideswipe around to help smooth things out, and he regretted ever activating his vocalisers that day.

Sunstreaker had not hesitated to vent his annoyance and anger upon him then, and now Cliffjumper delighted in reminding him about it on a regular basis, despite the fact he didn't like Sunstreaker either.

It was lucky for him that Sunstreaker walked out of the side room just as Blaster walked in. There was a short moment where their optics locked and then Sunstreaker said, "He's in there." And thumbed behind him, and then walked off himself, finding a spot to sit alone and watch the movie.

Blaster looked back at Jazz, puzzled.

Jazz shrugged and then went over to join Sunstreaker to watch the movie with him.

"What's up Sunshine?" Jazz said quietly so the others couldn't hear the name Sunstreaker was called.

Sunstreaker didn't react to Jazz's soft name calling as he knew it was being done quietly so no others couldn't hear him, not liking being called anything but his full name, "I'm bored." The yellow Reventon huffed.

"Well in case you didn't know, the femmes are on their way back."

This perked him up, "Really?"

"Yeah, really!" Answered Jazz. He quietly smiles to himself and thinks, _'Per'aps there's more ta him an' Sunstar than I thought, after all, it ain't the first time I've caught 'is faceplate lightin' up like that at the mere mention of that femme being close by!'_  
Sunstreaker however was aware of how intelligent Jazz was and would have suspected straight away seeing his faceplate in regards to knowing that the femmes were returning and it would have made him click as to who it was he wanted to see returning to the base. They looked at each for a bit before optics moved away from each other.

"S'ok Sunny, I won't say a word about your little crush!" He mused.

"Hmph." Sunstreaker grunted in a friendly manner, "You just did!"

"Yeah!" Laughed the Porsche, "So I did!"

Jazz was still laughing when more of his companions from the control room upstairs turned up. Most of them present looked up when Prime walked in with some others behind him, as well as Ella not too far behind. Ella went straight over to the movie screen and turned off.

She looked around at the Autobots for a moment and then looked up at Optimus, "Feel free to use one of the meeting rooms or even next door to talk to your soldiers." She stated.

Optimus walked to the area next door that was usually full of pub patrons so to speak and was followed by Prowl and some others. The others still sitting looked around at each other expectantly and then quickly followed with a belated arrival from Blaster and Sideswipe who came in last.

Ella then left to meet her teams coming back from their flight.

*

Days later.

Ella had gotten a complete overview of the Spyhunters activities again from Heatwave when the teams arrived that day. She had quickly sent him and his whole team down to the medical bay to be checked over by the medics.

Even though Heartia was a civilian mecha, she had stayed behind for medical reasons knowing she would be needed, while Raymond and Sunstar went and assisted with checking over the wounded and also treating the Spyhunters.

Optimus had addressed his group also and made some decisions based on information that Prowl had calculated for him, glad that his old 2IC had decided to help for now.

Prowl had decided to join his own team with the Autobots for the time being, their memories of working together in the past would be advantageous to the upcoming situation. Each of the mecha on the base who were able bodied, were put into smaller groups according who they were used to dealing with.

Each one of Prowl's team, Julio, Henry, William, Jackson, and Bryan, were put with a smaller group of Autobots as these individuals knew the base while not all the Autobots knew every area or were familiar with it as some of them were. Smaller groups would be patrolling different areas of the base and would report in any suspicious activities as they arose.

Ella knew that Decellion would be thinking about descending upon the base now that her position had been found out in Europe. She was also grateful that Optimus had decided to remain till the immanent attack was over.

*

Out in space above Earth, a cloaked ship had come out of hyperspace and stationed itself in a stable orbit above the planet under a cloak.

It was Galvetron's ship. He was tired of waiting for Decellion to come good on her promise of delivering the powerful artefacts she had said could be retrieved easily from somewhere on Earth. So he had come to Earth in his battleship to check on her activities. As well as take care of some other matters.

His spies on Cybertron were very well hidden and adept at getting information for him. He had left them behind from a previous battle and was proud of the fact they had still managed to stay hidden and were able to report on most of the Autobots activities for him.

As soon as he had been informed that Optimus was on Earth, it had given him another reason to leave Charr with most of his remaining soldiers and descend upon the hapless planet he loathed.

It was an opportunity that he wasn't going to pass up. Getting a chance to take care of his old foe again.

While leaving his ship in orbit under control of some troops he had decided to leave in reserve if they were needed for a battle, he warped down to the planet using an orbital teleportation unit he had use of and found Decellion without any trouble still in Europe collecting raw energy and also in the midst of planning an assault on a base somewhere north of the old Ark base that the Autobots had.

He remembered that this was the base that Soundwave had reported to him about and so took a slight interest in this planning, allowing Decellion to do most of the thinking, and only interjecting when he didn't agree with her plan.

If what he heard about who was on this particular base he would be able to take care of more than one problem today and this made him grin. Starscream, the bane of his existence, was also reputed to be on this base. As were the others he considered to be traitors. He would be able to take care of Starscream and the others who had abandoned the Decepticons for measly lives amongst the pathetic people of this planet and Primus only knew who else. If they couldn't be convinced to return to his side then he would terminate them.

Starscream however he would destroy on site. He couldn't believe that he was still alive and functional and this irritated him. How many times was he going to have to terminate him? He just would not stay terminated.

*


	38. Chapter 38 Into The Fray

*Into The Fray*  
*

It had taken 24 hours for Ella to mobilize all those who wished to be involved in this upcoming fight.

Ella knew it was going to get rough and she let everyone on the base who was available to fight have a choice. There were a few civilians who had previously refused to leave and so Ella had let them stay and defend the base alongside the others.

The bulk of the forces were left at the base while Ella took who she could alongside the Autobots under Jazz's command to the Caucasus Mountains to confront the enemy hiding out there.

The Storm Wings team and others that stayed behind assisted to upgrade security as much as possible in the absence of the others.

And at the Ark, the Transformer Armstrong and his security team did their best to finish up with Ella's project that she wanted them to complete at Mt St Hilary, East of Portland, Oregon.

*

After the teams had left for the Caucasus however, they had not realised that Soundwave had been dispatched on Galvetron's orders to once again infiltrate the Dragon Valley base.

They had only managed to get as close this time to the hidden base due to Scorponok's new technology, upgraded Pretender shells that were as indistinguishable alongside ordinary humans, and so some Decepticon teams as well as some of Decellion's reformatted Destrons and a single of Necromancer, were able to hide in plain site outside Port Angeles and slowly made their way south towards their base.

*

On route to the Soviet, Ella was ill at ease. She had the feeling that something was amiss back home. But she was concerned about some other matters also.

"Something up Boss lady?" Asked Vanguard. She often noticed these things as the slightest shift in Ella's demeanour in the past could mean big things. But then she was quick to notice almost anything, as was her own nature. She got up and joined her as there were several vacant seats next to Ella and the rest of them. She asked, "So you think you would be able to take on Decellion one on one for a final fight?"

It had been a question that had been on the thoughts of many of her team lately. Sound Track was listening and got up to join them also.

Ella not wanting to worry Vanguard, joked, "I would probably die trying old friend.

Sound Track knew better, she knew due to Ella's real age, her personal power was starting to wind down as it did for most Bioroids when their life cycle was starting to phase out and knew it wouldn't be long before Ella may have to leave them and they had to deal with everything on their own.

Sound Track sat herself down on the human sized seats next to Ella as everyone here was either using their normal or new Biomodes and most were strapped into the seats for the trip. The femme hoped Ella would be allowed to finish the work she wanted to get done before she left them. Ella had a long road ahead of her before anything could be finished.

Just then their transport, Steelwind, shifted and veered off to one side and Vanguard and Sound Track who had yet to strap themselves down were caught off guard and went flying across the other side into another unfortunate mech. When Steelwind righted herself again she apologised for her actions much to the femmes' chagrin.

Jazz had been the one who had been flattened. Not that he minded being under two females. Even though he was rather sore from the two heavier femmes, he grinned broadly and this got some laughter from the others.

"I see the femmes are still falling for you eh Jazz!" Tracks Joked.

Whereas Jazz just laughed to himself along with everyone as he unstrapped himself and helped the femmes up.

Jazz helped the females secure themselves elsewhere, but was thinking about something that just crossed his mind. He turned to Sound Track and asked, "So who do ya think Galvetron brought with him from Charr?"

In the last 24 hours, the computer at Dragon Valley had been observing the space ways and had confirmed the arrival of their enemy from his citadel on the planet Charr. Whether or not he was now on Earth was another matter entirely for them.

"Ah don't know Jazz, but we'll fahnd out when we land."

Steelwind had told them over her comms that they had arrived and began her descent to their arrival point.

The Spyhunters had returned to the location before them and were currently there in hiding, observing all that was going on to Steelwind, giving her a safe location to land and allow the accompanying passengers in her cargo bay to disembark.

Heatwave had already been in the middle of prepping his team for an impending infiltration when the others had arrived and wasted no time in telling them what they had found out.

*

Before the outside visitors had arrived, several Earth hours ago.

Decellion had discussed with Galvetron her idea to have some of her Necromancer and Destron soldiers invade Ella's base in Port Angeles. Galvetron had agreed to the idea but also had his own plans. He made a point to have his Pretender shelled soldiers accompany the mission. He also wanted his trusted right hand mech Soundwave to lead them as he had been on the base before and had plans of the place.

He wanted as many supplies as could be, stolen from this base. Decellion however had her own plans.

Galvetron had wondered what other agenda she had in mind and still didn't trust this femme openly. He had to think to himself. He had gotten rid of the likes of Starscream from his inner circle previously, only to be burdened with her now. He was the one who had chosen to take her into his company, after she and her supposed empire had offered him the power, and at every turn she had provided for almost every promise she had made to him. Much better than anything Starscream had been able to do.

When it was finally decided, Galvetron and Decellion would stay here; the other assigned soldiers would either defend the ship or be sent to the USA for the base infiltration.

They were both in the control room when two of his soldiers walked in, Cyclonus and Scourge. She left the room shortly after commenting that she had to help prepare her soldiers for an attack that may come from others.

Cyclonus watched her leave and when she was completely gone, he turned to Galvetron, "Are you sure it is wise to let her out of your sight yet again my Lord?"

Galvetron looks at Cyclonus, "What choice do we have right now? I trust her even less than I ever trusted Starscream. But if you and Scourge are as intent as I am about mistrusting her, follow her and watch her activities and report back to me on what she does."

They soon leave after receiving their orders.

Sometime later Galvetron received a report from Soundwave that he found very interesting.

*

It was already the next day in Port Angeles and Adam had relieved the four Roughnecks agents with him due to him getting the same bad vibes his mother had about Dragon Valley base.

While Flashdance had taken herself up to the secret base under Port Angeles University, the rest, Landslide, Tempest and Freeway had returned to Dragon Valley.

However Flashdance wasn't alone. She had been given hurried instructions by Adam to escort his prospective mecha pilot students to the area under the University to secretly introduce them to their mecha units.

Along with Flashdance were the bunch of kids from the local high school, the group consisted of Laura, Ryan, Lex, Trevor, Hannah, Christine, Adrian and Aelya and also Robert.

Bumblebee and Cliffjumper had gone along due to them having some friends amongst this group. Flash' had thought them being here would be a good idea should anything come up.

Looking around the base, Laura had recognized most of the equipment she had seen in the base proper over the years, most of the science and engineering equipment that is, as well as some of the cars, but not all of them were visible due to being covered.

She sidled up to Flashdance who was currently in her Biomode overseeing some deskwork at one of the computers. "What are you doing Flick'?"

Felicia put her hands to her lips and then looked around at the others here were currently engrossed in looking over all the mechanical technology with Bumblebee and Cliffjumper, whom she saw had adopted their new Biomodes, then continued, "It's a secret ya'll!"

She grinned as only she could in her madcap way and Laura picked up the hint. Adam had given her something to do here today. She looked around at all her friends who were spread out around the underground bunker looking at everything and grinned.

"This was Adam's ahdea ta bring ya here t'day." Felicia informed her. "We need to school ya'll in tha mecha units just in case, Adam got some bad vahbes rahght b'fore he sent me here with ya."

Laura nodded.

Felicia told her about the agreement had now been made between Adam and the US President to work together on the civilian project and Laura recalled the public announcement that as made on the television news.

The Military would have their own units and would still contract Drake Corp for the bulk of the materials and engineering. And Adam and his team of instructors would personally oversee the training of the youths, who would later be inducted into a separate group when old enough, overseen by the Military.

Laura knew the existence of the civilian mecha project had caused somewhat of a furore when it was announced. Adam had purposefully given out the website for applications during a recent media interview, but the site had been swamped with young people of the age group he was after for the training who wanted to apply for what he was offering.

Laura was just glad that all her friends had made the first cut that Adam was offering full free tuition to and was happy that day of introduction to the training had come.

"Th'red one ovah there has tha processors in it ya'll from ya Ma's old Bug, from one o' tha earlier test units we were workin' on. We just gave it a new chassis." Felicia smiled as Laura looked at her suddenly and gasped.

"Really?" She said excited.

Felicia nodded to confirm and pointed at the car which was just showing up under the cover that was over it, a new black and red VW Bug, Laura's favourite kind of car. She couldn't believe her luck.

"Can I sit in it?" She asks

"Sure, whah not." Felicia says without turning her head from the consol she had turned her attention back to.

Cliffjumper and Bumblebee had gotten bored with looking at all the vehicles and had sauntered over to where Laura was as she seemed to be doing something. They were both watching her look over the car she had uncovered with great curiosity and enthusiasm.

Laura was inside and squealing with delight over her new acquisition.

"Hi guys!" She said cheerfully.

Both were about to answer back when Laura flicked a switch unknowingly and something happened. What followed was a series of gears shifting and changing that was instantly recognizable by the two Autobots.

The noise had caught the attention of Laura's friends and it had drawn them over to where she was. When everything stopped they all looked without removing their gaze. What they saw was a femme transformer under the guise of a black and red new VW Bug.

"Cool!" Exclaimed Trevor.

"I want one!" Said Robert excitedly.

But Christine was worried about Laura. She saw what the machine had been, having caught sight of it shortly after the noise began and she saw the size that it was now, only slightly bigger than the two Minibots. "Is Laura in there somewhere?"

"It's ok I'm here." Said the vocalised female voice of the mecha unit. It was Laura's voice but it sounded more mechanical. Christine sighed, "That's a relief!"

"You mean to tell me she is in there somewhere?" Commented Trevor.

"Yep." Replied Ryan. He turned to Felicia knowing she had something to do with it and asked, "Now where can I get one?"

Felicia pointed blithely at a row of covered cars and let them run off and investigate, leaving Laura with her and the two Autobots.

"I got dibs on the red Ferrari!" Yelled Hannah when she uncovered the first one.

Felicia looked in their direction and smiled.

Cliffjumper turned to Laura and asked, "So you think you can handle that thing kid?"

"Does Sunstreaker have a headcase full of hot air?" She sassed back.

Both of the Autobots broke out in laughter at her joke.

Cliffjumper looked at his friend Bumblebee and said, "You know I think she'll do just fine piloting that thing!"

*

Around Dragon Valley base, the infiltration had already begun and Soundwave and his group were assisting him with their break in, they had already gotten inside the base. The security system had tried to seal off the areas but it had already been taken over by someone else.

The computer wasn't able to seal the doors but it could still operate the internal security alarms. It made the ones inside the base aware of the situation but by then it was already too late.

Soundwave and the rest had already gotten inside by hacking into the security systems to open the doors for them. When he had been a prisoner here before he had hacked the system and downloaded a map of the entire base, information that had utilised by Galvetron when the infiltration plan was formulated.

Of his team, the ones who had been spotted first were engaged by Freefall's team being led by Nightfall. However Freefall and many others all over the base were isolated due to the communications system being taken out already.

There was one Necromancer in the group and it had managed to get past several of the patrolling security groups inside the base once they were inside.

He had made himself scarce as soon as he was able to get away from the Transformers and the rest of the Destrons that were with him. He had been asked by Decellion to conduct a private mission to find the location of the hidden temple beneath the base that she was after. She required access to the computer system there and also blueprints to build her own weapon that would be powered by the collected power units.

It was something she wanted to add to the mecha planet that the Dominion were building. She could utilise nanotechnology to incorporate this system into the planet without ever having a raise a digit to build anything herself.

As soon as this lone agent had found an entrance to the temple area he was instructed to radio Decellion who would come at once.

The initial attack of the invaders was mainly on the upper part of the base, and many were attacked and injured in their attempt to infiltrate the lower levels. They had gotten a fair way into the base before their numbers had been calculated by the base computer but by then everyone on the base was vastly outnumbered and had to make themselves scarce if they hadn't already been injured.

What they didn't know was that the Commander of the Destrons, Decellion had shown up with the rest of her entourage outside the base. Many that already hadn't found a safe hiding place when she made her way inside were taken prisoner or subdued till Decellion got what she wanted. She wanted to spend as little time as possible in this place and so instead of wasting time killing the residents of the base that got in her way she ignored them for the most part and went after the Necromancer agent that had summoned her.

Soundwave was watching what was going on, observing all that was going on with Decellion and her lot that had just arrived.

She wasn't supposed to be here, she was supposed to be with Galvetron back at the other ship. He had left Laserbeak to observe her wanderings and bypass the signal back to Galvetron. In light of her appearance here, he didn't think Galvetron would object to the footage.

He had already taken over of the control room of the base, forcing out everyone else in an ill fated gun fight and was watching everyone on the cameras. That was when he noticed more Decepticons turn up. Cyclonus, Scourge and his Sweeps. Obviously Galvetron had sent them after Decellion, knowing about her leaving her ship and not trusting her intentions. Quietly he continued to observe.

*

In the Soviet Mountains, Ella was going over a battle plan with the respective group leaders to infiltrate the alien ship, which had been heavily fortified by Dominion Nanotechnology.

Heatwave had already explained that he had posted his team around the base to watch as well to inform of anything useful. "Any more input you have Ella for the situation would be good." Asked Heatwave.

Sound Track had to sigh in her head. When it came to anything female though, he often fawned all over them, no matter the species, in order to get what he wanted.

Jazz was looking over a holographic representation of the alien ship as well as the area surrounding it. He noticed that the area wasn't too vehicle mode friendly for the most of them, and would be better suited to the ones among them who had ATV abilities in their vehicle modes or traversing the surroundings in their robot modes.

Of all their individual groups, Heatwave had only half his team members. The other half had been asked to go home from Dragon Valley to Britain before heading out on this particular mission by Lucas for a mission with MI6; his entourage included for now; Snowball, Burnout's maternal unit, a heavily armoured Deltronian military tank; Burnout's two younger sisters, Renegade and Ricochet, a couple of sharp shooting vigilante law enforcers; Midnight, Sunstar's twin sister; Jumpstart, Sound Track's older sister, and her partner, Warblade, who had been borrowed from Freefall's team as well as Firebolt, Stake Out and Frostbite, other male siblings of Burnout's who were also on the team.

Jazz had brought along the twins, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, Tracks, Hound, Bluestreak, Hot Rod and Kup with his Targetmaster partner.

Ella was in her mecha form Valkyrie and had brought along the Roughnecks members who were available; Sound Track, Joyride, Sunstar, Vanguard, Steelwind, Ranger and Burnout.

There was a bit of ill air between Jazz and Heatwave as Ella had called them both over with Sound Track to discuss the plan. Sound Track stood between the two of the males so as to stop any trouble.

Jazz knew why Heatwave didn't like him, thinking he was with Sound Track.

Heatwave was still reluctant to let go of his feelings for her. And Jazz couldn't deny that he had some feelings for Sound Track himself, but didn't like Heatwave and his overbearing attitude anyway, so for the pit of it he kept up the charade to annoy him further.

Sound Track indicated to several points on the holographic map. "Ok ya'll, if we go in an' attack in several small groups and trah ta infiltrate tha ship that way we can all take out any small group of enemy soldiers we come across. We should at least have one of each of ya'll soldiers Jazz," She said looking at him, "With at least two each of tha rest of us, if there are enough."

"Sounds good ta me." Says Jazz.

Heatwave adds, "Agreed, but who goes with who? I certainly do not want Midnight and Sunstar put together." He motioned noticing that the two were glaring at each other across different sides of the room ready for an excuse to start up their age old grudge against each other.

Ella had done this for a reason as these twins did not like each other one bit. "And nor will I put you and Sound Track together Heatwave."

Sound Track faceplate is non responsive. Heatwave snorts at his not getting what he wants and somewhere else in the room a severe verbal argument had started between the femme twins. Ella turns to the two femmebots and yells, making the room shake, "Knock it off you two, enough already. You're making Sideswipe and Sunstreaker look like perfect angels over here the way you two are acting right now."

"Who us?!" Sideswipe chuckled. Sunstreaker however whacked him in the shoulder plate and told him to shut up. "Hey what was that for?" He pleaded trying to look innocent as best he could.

Sunstreaker replies, "Just shut up idiot." Whereas Sideswipe gives him a rude gesture and moves to sit somewhere else away from him.

Ella calls the teams. "Okay, we can put together several teams of three from all the groups here. We are going to need some to stay and fight out here to draw them out, while the rest infiltrate the ship and take them out from the inside."

*

Down in the lower part of Dragon Valley base, Heather had taken refuge with the young Droidians who had been on the base for the day.

She was also with Freefall. She hadn't seen Starscream since the trouble started and his sudden disappearance worried her, wondering what he could be up to.

Both were trying their best to find as many stranded base residents and fighters as they could bit by bit and get them out by the now shut down cargo elevators at the main entrance. Right now they were hidden away in Ella's car shed nearby and hadn't yet been discovered.

"As much fun as I'm having right now hiding here," Heather said up to the large purple femme, "Shouldn't we at least make a run for the cargo elevator?"

"I hev to deal vith problem here first. If Decellion gets past Dinosaurers in Biodome then all could be lost. You go, teke children vith you."

Heather knew that the Dinosaurers, their heavy hitters, had been placed there for that reason. The area under the base had to be protected. Freefall was more worried about Decellion if she got her hands on more Power matrices that were in the temple.

Heather sighed, "I guess I better get going and get this lot out of here. You going to take care of everything else are you?"

Freefall nodded.

One of the Droidians asks, "How'd they even get in here anyway?"

"Blasted home wreckers! Let me out there and I'll give 'em a piece of my mind and maybe my fists too." Says another bravely.

"No Oilslick, you'll do nothing of the sort." The young Droidian got an angry protective glare from Heather. "Right now we are getting out of here and leaving the fighting to Freefall and the other soldiers alright." The youngsters all nodded and settled down.

Freefall gave the human sized mech and her entourage cover between the garage and the cargo bay, watching them ascend for some distance before returning to her hiding place in the garage and venturing into the ventilation system that would hopefully lead her to the control room elsewhere.

Freefall had downsized herself to her Biomode and made her way through the vents towards the control room.

Upon viewing areas through the grills she was passing, she noticed there were not many of Decellion's lot in this part of the base. But there were a few Decepticons. She exited a grill near the control room entrance and shifted back to her mecha size to confront the enemy guard outside the control room doors.

It wasn't too long however before she took down the two guards and got inside, finding Soundwave on his own and ready for a fight with the new intruder to his adopted watchtower.

All she needed was get control of the communication unit, get it working and send out a distress call to anyone listening if she could.

*

The young kids were sitting around further up the tunnel in the area underneath the university oblivious to what was going on further down at Dragon Valley base.

"Wow that was awesome! Did you see what Laura did?" Says Ryan. There came a resounding yes from most of them. "You think we'd be able to do the same if we could find out what she did to activate the unit she has?" No one knew how to activate the units as Laura didn't know what she did in the first place.

Hannah pipes up, "I say we do it! Besides did you see some of the lush tech they've got in those cars we checked out?"

Ryan and Christine were impressed with the fact that there were duplicates of their own cars there but they were filled with high tech gadgets and circuitry. Robert had claimed himself a sweet looking van like the old rock wagon he used to have. Adrian and Hannah had taken a Ferrari F430 and an Enzo for themselves. While Trevor found himself an F-150 pickup truck. Alexandra had found herself a silver Mercedes. And Aelya had declined to claim anything for herself due to her lack of interest in the vehicles.

"How hard can it be to operate those things anyway if Laura can do it I'm sure we can too, right?" Comments Lex.

But the noise coming from down the tunnel got their attention.

It was Cliffjumper and Bumblebee who reacted first at the sight of half a dozen Decepticon Pretenders as well as four of Soundwave's minions. This lot had found the tunnel and the monorail leading to it and found the underground area occupied with several people.

Flashdance reverted back to her robot form along with the two Minibots and told the kids to go and hide. But Laura didn't go she joined them in the fight.

"Well, well, lookie what we got here mech's!" Said an exuberant Rumble.

"Fresh targets!" Replied his twin Frenzy.

The kids knew who the interlopers were and made themselves scarce, leaving the others to fight them. Most did the smart thing and hid where they could, but some took refuge in the armoured vehicles and that led to some of the units activating. All of the kids had actually chosen the vehicles that were already pre-assigned to them without knowing it. The ones that had been activated were responding to the protection of their pilot within and transformed, going into automated combat mode on reflex, surprising not only their passenger but also the Decepticon invaders, catching them off guard, but not intimidating them.

"Looks like we can help after all!" Commented Christine to Lex over the radio of her transformed Plymouth Fury once she had found the comms unit.

"Now let's go help these guys out shall we?" Radioed back 'Lex from the silver Mercedes.

"Yeah the layout of these things isn't all that different to the battlefield arcade game that Ella lets us play at the base." Said Ryan. He had found his Corvette Stinger and figured out how to activate it, joining the group readily, "This is like the coolest thing I've ever done!" The rest had all taken refuge inside Roberts van.

The Decepticons weren't impressed with the lack of skills of these mecha units that they'd noticed were supposedly being piloted by a bunch of human youths, but they did notice they were well armoured. Eventually, with the direction of the three seasoned fighters amongst them, Flashdance, Bumblebee and Cliffjumper, they were able to start pressing the Decepticons back down the tunnel and towards Dragon Valley base.

Flashdance had figured an infiltration had taken place and attempted to contact the control room but got no response.

*

At the base in the lower depths, the Necromancers were still trying to subdue the Dinosaurers as per Decellion's orders. Decellion herself had gotten past Bonecrusher and she had come across something else, a familiar tickle at the back of her mind and had not planned on running into these familiar creatures here at all on Earth that had come out in response to her presence.

*

At Autobase, the Protectobots had gone out on patrol over an hour ago. The Aerialbots had come back and were currently recharging, some members had even finished and had joined Optimus in the control room.

Silverbolt was standing quietly behind Optimus watching the screen and reports coming in from the Protectobots sweep of the area when they received a distress signal from Dragon Valley base.

"This is Autobase responding, go ahead Dragon Valley." Said Optimus.

"Thenk the light I vas eble to get through." Responded the voice on the other end of the video feed.

Optimus Prime recognised the femme by her appearance, "What's the problem Freefall?" He asked listening to the shots being fired in the background and getting worried.

"There she is, get her!" Says a voice out of sight. Freefall avoids the shots and continues talking to Optimus. The invaders come into the camera range and he not only sees they are Decepticons but and also recognises Soundwave.

But the shots from the Decepticons trying to yet again take over the control room at Dragon Valley are interfering with the signal and Optimus and Silverbolt only hear bits and pieces of information, "Ve…help…base inveded…Decellion…Decepticons here...few left..." Then all of a sudden there was a flash of light as Freefall could no longer continue keeping the signal open and the screen was blasted by the 'Cons shots.

Optimus looked at Silverbolt, "Get all the Aerialbots ready for immediate Departure. "Mirage," Who had only just entered the room, "Let Ultra Magnus know I will be taking a team to attend to a battle at Dragon valley, call the Protectobots in from their patrol to protect the base if need be. Blaster," Who had come in behind Mirage, "Come with me. On the way I'll need you to call Jazz and let him know what's going on." With that Optimus rushed out of the base with Blaster not far behind and the Aerialbots in the air above them, all headed north to Dragon Valley base.

*


	39. Chapter 39 Battle Royale

*Battle Royale*  
*

To the north of the Dominion ship in the Caucasus Mountains, a small group of six mechanoids were huddled behind a rocky outcrop firing back at the ship's cannons in that area. This team consisted of Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Sunstar, Steelwind, Firebolt and Jumpstart.

To the south firing upon the battlements at that end of the ship, there were another group of mechanoids. This group consisted of Bluestreak, Hound, Burnout, Sound Track, Renegade and Ricochet.

In various places around the ship several mechs were battling Decepticon and Destron soldiers, having managed to draw them out. These individuals were Ranger, Tracks, Kup, Midnight and Heatwave. But they were soon joined by the other two groups and were now scattered all over the place trying to avoid enemy fire or get inside the base.

Inside the ship, a group of mechanoids had infiltrated the place. These individuals were Vanguard, Jazz, Joyride, Stakeout, Warblade, Ella as Valkyrie and Hot Rod. Four of them had gone one way and three had gone the other way. Hot Rod went with Jazz, Joyride and Stake Out. Ella went with Vanguard and Warblade.

Jazz's group had encountered some enemy fire in the halls of the ship.

Several shots had come towards Hot Rod and all had missed. "Hah! Is that the best you can do you bozo's, c'mon, take your best shot!" Hot Rod offers to them.

However he does get shot at, hit and thrown back past the rest of the group. Jazz couldn't help but snicker at his team mates bravado, "Maybe that'll teach ya to keep ya yap shut eh, buddy?"

"Yeah maybe!" Says Hot Rod jokingly. He gets up and dusts himself off and starts firing at the enemy again. Due to his new fast nano healing ability, minor injuries were no longer a concern to him and so he went right back into fighting

Meanwhile an alarm on Jazz's comms unit started to buzz. "Jazz here, go ahead."

"Hey there smooth groover, this Blaster blastin' atcha from U.S of A, the big red wanted me to tell ya, he and the birdbots are on a rescue along with yours truly. It seems our buddies at Dragon Valley are being invaded by Decellion and her crew." Blaster conveyed.

"Copy that Blaster ol' buddy, Jazz out." Jazz sighed and punched in Ella's comms code and tried to pass his information through, but to no avail. All he got was static; he had to wait till he caught up with her to pass along the information, and wondered that while he was having no problems with his radio, why hers wasn't working.

*

At the console in the control room Freefall had tried to get the whole message through but guessed only fragments would have been received because of the damage. She was hoping that they gleamed enough to send help to the base.

"Ve need immediete help. Dragon Valley base being inveded by Decellion end her Necromencers. Decepticons here fighting es vell. I em one of few left fighting." This was the message she had patched through before the fire from the Decepticons on the deck below had shot at her and the console, shorting it and cancelling out the comms unit.

Ordinarily the computers nanotechnology would have healed the metal up but part of it had been shut down by Soundwave.

She held out for as long as was possible before she was surreptitiously rescued by an anonymous person and came online inside the medical bay.

She had found out that their CMO, Heartia, had holed herself up in the medical bay and had been doing the same thing she was, venturing out carefully and rescuing anyone she could find. Bringing back as many as she could and keeping them safe inside the medical bay by barricading the doors from the enemy.

*

After getting past Bonecrusher without much effort and leaving the femme and her team at the mercy of her Necromancers, Decellion found a cave that led down a walkway. She eventually found herself in what she saw was a huge underground cavern. There were many ledges with caves on levels both above and below her that she assumed belonged to the dwellers here. There was also a large wide road around the outside edge of the cliff face all around as far as she could see, but there appeared no bridges or way across to her target by walking.

In the centre, much like the main citadel on the Dominion's new home planet Omicron, there was the temple. Like a castle built on a mountain top. The building was made of ancient Angellion technology and integrated into the natural structure of the cave itself. The chasm in between her and the temple was wide and very deep and she had noticed that she had become surrounded by these dwellers, the ones who obviously protected the Temple.

Despite how deep she had now traversed into these caves, she could still hear some fighting going on back at the Biodome outside. She ignored the dwellers and listened to the sounds of the fighting. She had to give these Dinosaurers credit. Not many mecha were able to take as much damage as they could against so many of her Necromancers and still be functional.

The dwellers had come out in response to Decellions presence here and she wasn't the slightest bit impressed that she had her way ahead barred by these techno-organic creatures now. She had thought that all the original Cybredeon had been removed from areas outside the new Alliance a long time ago. But she supposed this species must have been left alone or forgotten about and flourished in the absence of any interference. This seemingly passive yet powerful and formidable species was the reason why the original Alliance had sought to employ them to protect their most precious technologies in their alliance of planets from the likes of her and others like her.

The fact this planet had once been part of the original Alliance so long ago could be a reason that they were here, she supposed. If the planet had this temple then it would have the weapons platform she wanted the blueprints for, as well as the sentient core she knew certain planets within the Alliance had. This was something she had made a hunch on considering her nemesis had a base here and was glad her hunch proved correct.

These Cybredeons were also one reason why she had used this species as a genetic base for her Necromancers when she first made them using cybernetic re-engineering. Separating the cybernetic and organic components in the DNA of her first test subjects and then making a prototype that was wholly mecha was the result.

During the time she was still active many millions of Earth years ago, the making of the soldiers was not a hard process but it was hard finding good stock to use. She had found that searching out quality stock was better than stooping to constant genetic cybernetic replication which made them weaker and degenerative over long periods of time.

Right now looking at the aliens before her, what she saw was a lot of very good stock. She supposed it was due to the alien's interaction and possible cross breeding with the filthy little organic ape species she now knew was on this planet. She thought it was unfortunate that their DNA may be mixed but it wouldn't matter when they were captured and converted by her new nanotech conversion. They were ripe for the harvesting to be turned into her mechanical terrors; she could never have more than enough to surround her after all.

But first she wanted something from the temple and then she would deal with them.

Getting to the temple was the immediate problem. Considering how territorial they were when aroused, that and the fact that none were exhibiting any passivity right now, she would have to fight her way past them. Not that they would or could stop her, she knew they couldn't defeat her in any way as she was already too powerful, but they would certainly try, they were very fearless. She would have to come back for them later.

As she wandered around the fringes of the ledge she watched them and they watched her. They hissed and spat at her continuously but would not openly attack unless she made a move towards going over the chasm towards the temple.

Somewhere close she sensed a familiar mental snarl. "Well it seems that after all this time you are still around!" Decellion mused. This particular dweller was someone she recognised as having gotten away form her clutches of being converted a long time ago and she wondered how she had gotten here. Not many Cybredeons ever moved from their home turf. The Cybredeon Queen snarled again, deeper this time. "Hello Lilith."

The Cybredeon let off a wall shaking thunderous growl in response to her title being spoken by another being whose existence disgusted her to no end.

*

Upon arriving to the Dragon Valley base, Optimus had found the road entrance blocked off.

"What we gonna do now Boss?" Asked Blaster.

"Well, I hope Ella doesn't mind but we will need to remove this..." Grunted the Autobot Commander as he ripped the huge metal doors of the bunker open to get to the entrance of the underground base and also the lifts hidden within them, "...To get inside." It was by no means an easy feat as only someone with his level of strength could have done it. "This is the only entrance we know of and need to use to get inside."

Once that was done he and Blaster wandered inside and looked over the edge onto the slope below as there was no elevator platforms present to obstruct their view. Blaster whistled about the drop of the slope.

While they were doing this, the Aerialbots returned from their air survey and reported what they had seen to their Commander about a group of base escapees taking refuge somewhere safe in the surrounding forest.

While Silverbolt and Skydive talked to Optimus, the other Aerialbots joined Blaster in looking over the edge, waiting upon orders to descend from Optimus.

Fireflight stood back slightly from the edge and was teased for it by Slingshot. Air Raid however stood right on the precipice next to Slingshot. And Blaster stood back with Fireflight.

Air Raid teased, "Sure you don't wanna stand here for a great view Blaster?"

"Nah, I'm fine back here. You sure you don't wanna closer look?" He Replied. This made both of the mechs laugh as Air Raid knew Blaster was only joking about pushing him down the shaft.

Optimus and Silverbolt had finished talking then turned to face the group. Optimus ordered, "Skydive and Silverbolt will take me down and you Slingshot..." He pointed, "...Will take down Blaster."

Blaster could be heard muttering something under his vocals and Air Raid snickered.

Not too much later when they were at the bottom of the elevators.

"Well that was fun!" Commented an exasperated Blaster, "I'll have to try it again some time later. Much later!" He added sarcastically when his peds were on the ground again.

"Anytime's fine with me!" Joked Slingshot, knowing full well Blaster didn't like the trip or him for that matter.

"Blaster?" Asked Optimus, "You've been here more times than I have, do you remember where the communications centre is?"

"The control centre Prime? It's up here." Indicated the Autobot, to a point further down the base and they all head off in the direction Blaster pointed to.

"Primus! They left no stone unturned here." Blaster commented, looking around at the base and the mess, "Kinda reminds me of the Planet of Junk. I'm getting no life force readin's at all Prime, at least not from around here." He paused for a moment as he passed the medical bay. "Hey wait a nanoclick..."

He was as surprised as the rest of them when Heartia in her mecha form stuck her head out of the medical bay and quickly invited them in, closing the doors again behind them.

Blaster looked around at all the injured and uninjured in the medical bay and saw that his scanners were working just fine detecting life signs, when outside they didn't. "So how come we didn't pick up any o' these folks when we were outside?" He asked curiously.

"That's because of this." She showed them the life sign dampeners that were operational inside the medical bay. "The whole tech system in here runs independently, especially if there's a situation like this, power isn't taken from the injured that need the power supply to stay alive or for myself or the other medics to do our work. Plus it dampens out any outside interference."

Optimus glanced past Heartia and saw Freefall, "Is she alright?"

"She was brought in by someone when my team here were out looking for others; still don't know who left her here." Came the Medics response. "Feel free to go out into the base and bring back any more injured, in the mean time I will deal with who I have here. But take these." She gave them two data pad devices that were that held base maps and then turned her attention back to her work and left them to it.

"Right then." Decided Optimus. "Silverbolt, you take your team out and around the base and search for any others who are trapped or cut off and need help to get back here as well as take care of any of the enemy. Blaster, come with me and we'll see if we can do anything about the control room."

Another member of Heartia's medical staff let the Autobots out of the medical bay and then locked the area down again and the mechs panned out for their search using the devices Heartia had given them.

It wasn't long before Optimus and Blaster made their way up to the control room and Blaster grinned when he saw who was in there. Soundwave. While Prime dealt with the Decepticons on guard, Blaster went straight for his old nemesis.

*

In another part of the base there was another fight going on.

Landslide, Tempest and Freeway had all ended up together.

But unfortunately for them it was alone against two triple changers, Astro Train and Blitzwing as well as the six changer Six Shot. This lot had come along with Cyclonus and Scourge and had wasted no time in following orders to search for and extricate any supplies they could get their digits on. However they had also found themselves a fight with some femmes.

While Landslide was the highly trained martial artist capable of holding her own, she was no match for Six Shot, and she was quickly taken out of the fight and now lying offline on the cold metal floor.

Tempest could barely hold her own against one triple changer and was having trouble dealing with an amorous Blitzwing who was keeping her forcibly restrained. She didn't have the energy to fight back as she was severely drained. And felt rather disgusted by his roving hands.

Freestyle however was evading Astro Train's ion displacement guns blasts, "Dammit you little freak, stand still?!" He growled, extremely frustrated.

She could be heard chuckling over and over again as he continued to miss with each shot he aimed at her, and also having the courage to dick in every once in a while to land a blow in him or shoot him with her own pulse rifle.

Six Shot, after finishing his fight with Landslide, was sitting down close by, bored with his team mates antics. He was waiting for a suitable fight to come along. He didn't think the other two femmes were worthy of his skill and so just waited, letting his comrades deal with them. He got what he wished for however when several members of the Storm Wings waltzed in looking for a fight.

Of them all, Bombshell was the first one to cry out to the soldiers and get their attention. She approached Blitzwing first as he was mechhandling an unresponsive Tempest. She didn't approve of others beating up on or taking advantage of femmes, having suffered that injustice when she was a youngling and was now better for it.

He quickly dropped the now offline femme and answered Bombshells war cry.

Six Shot immediately went for Sunstorm as he remembered this mech and wanted a rematch, knowing he was worthy of his high level of skill. The other, a femme called Carrion went for Astro Train and double teamed with Freestyle.

It wasn't long before the two triple changers were taken prisoner, but at some stage during the fight with Six Shot and Sunstorm, their fight had elevated to a very skilful level and had traversed elsewhere in the base. But at some stage Sunstorm had lost track of his foe.

While he was searching, he thought to himself about his current life situation.

He had to admit that he felt strange fighting his old comrades but he had chosen to stay with the Storm Wings due to the better conditions. He also thought about what set him aside from his elder brother Starscream. While the two of them were innately conceited, he was less obtrusive, recalcitrant and belligerent than his brother, as well as the fact he was more spiritual.

While he wanted to continue his fight with Six Shot and not abandon the fight out of his own honour, the Decepticon had literally disappeared and he was being called back to his team by Nightfall from elsewhere on the base. He finally gave up and returned to the rest of his team.

*

With the combined help of the two Minibots and Flashdance, as well as the youths participating with their new mecha units, they were able to drive their interlopers all the way back down the long tunnel to Dragon Valley base. Luck was obviously on their side and they were grateful to even make it back in one piece.

Laura was still going strong in her mecha unit Ladybug elsewhere with Bumblebee and Cliffjumper still holding out alongside her.

Laura had found also that her little pet bugs who morphed themselves into and out of the subspace manifolds of her nanoskin were a great help in up-linking to her mecha unit and providing the suit with some much needed bug-like firepower, which entertained her to no end.

Flashdance on the other hand was making use of her light based abilities to confront the enemy disorienting them with her holographic displays. Both Bumblebee and Cliffjumper had never really seen her in action before and were marvelling at her holographic abilities, mumbling between themselves over whether such skills would be a match for Hound or not

*

In Europe, inside the alien ship.

Jazz had finally caught up with Ella and the rest of their group and had given her the news he had received from Blaster about Dragon Valley base, as well as informing her about her radio not working.

Ella didn't seem too surprised though. She had taken some blows and didn't always utilise her fast healing ability, unlike the rest who were affected by her blood psion when their nano healing worked automatically, her nano healing was manually controlled. She thanked Jazz for letting her know and set her healing system to work; repairing her radio system and other problems from the damage she had received and then set about contacting Sound Track to send her team back to Dragon valley to help out.

She reached out telepathically to Sound Track to advise her of the situation and got her to relay the information to each of the team members. Of all the responses Sound Track got back from the team, only Sunstar and Burnout opted to stay behind.

Sound Track opted to let both stay due to the battle and gathered up the rest, waiting in turn for each member to arrive at a predestined meeting point outside the ship she had sent to them telepathically. When all had come Steelwind transformed for them and took off, returning to Dragon Valley.

Ella did not think that this was the main battle any longer as Decellion was somewhere under her base looking for something and was hopeful, that the situation back home could be handled without he and that Sound Track could handle it for now. She knew she had previously gotten assistance from those that were underneath the base to help out if needed. In the meantime, she carried on with the battle at hand, with the assistance of the Autobots and the Spyhunters team.

Jazz and his team were still inside the base, taking down any enemy they could find that were opposing them. They received many scratches and scrapes for their efforts, and after having been joined by the twins, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, they scoured the base for any other stragglers but could find none. They sent word to Ella and the others that there was no sign on the base of Galvetron, Scourge and Cyclonus.

Outside, some of the others had noted to the rest of the group that there hadn't been any real sign of the Decepticon leader and his lackeys. Most of them had been too busy dealing with the rest of the Decepticons and Destrons here to notice anyone had gone missing, or whether they were there in the first place as they hadn't been seen at all.

Perhaps this fight had been staged as a distraction for their benefit. It was then that Ella decided that they needed to leave and return to her base to see what was really going on.

What they didn't know about Galvetron was that when Soundwave had sent some information to his leader from the control room of Dragon Valley base, Galvetron had decided that the battle at Decellion's ship wasn't worth sticking around for and had left via a teleport through his warship in space and then again down to Dragon Valley, joining up with Cyclonus and Scourge who had arrived by means of flight.

*

When Cyclonus and Scourge had arrived they had taken the same path that Soundwave and also Decellion and her lot had taken and had disappeared inside the base before Optimus and his group had turned up elsewhere.

When Galvetron had departed from Decellion's ship, he also took the same path into the base, finding it unguarded, he went after his Lieutenant Cyclonus and his off sider Scourge and the soldiers that came with them.

Cyclonus reported in to his Commander upon his scanners detecting his presence on the base and then Galvetron followed his locator right to where his loyal soldier was waiting for him. Cyclonus then proceeded to report on everything that had happened thus far that he knew about.

What Galvetron had been most curious about was the continual stream of video images that Soundwave's minions, Laserbeak, was feeding him. He had redirected the relay signal from Decellion's ship to his own and then had patched it through to him personally when he arrived on site. He could see everything the mechanical Vulture was seeing in regards to quietly observing Decellion. So far the bird hadn't been seen as far as he knew and he was going to use this to his advantage to descend deeper into the base and find out what the dark femme was up to and take for himself whatever it was she was after for himself.

*

Elsewhere in the base, in the control room.

Soundwave and two other Decepticons had been restrained and locked up in a side room. Optimus had already left and rejoined with the Aerialbots, while Blaster stayed in the control room and sought to re-establish any system that had been shut down. But it was hard considering he didn't know this system too well.

They had both determined that for now, locking up those Decepticons in a side room and then blasting the door controls to lock them in, was the best thing they could do for now. But it probably wouldn't hold them for long.

Blaster had however gotten some of the security cameras up and running and was watching his Boss's back. He had also observed the return of the newly appointed member of the Roughnecks team, Steelwind, to the runway upstairs, which luckily for them was deserted, as fighting was going on everywhere else in the lower parts of the base.

Blaster mumbled to himself, "Ella musta sent 'em back to help out after Jazz got my message. Good, now they can find somewhere to put those Decepti-creeps we have locked up."

Sound Track had an idea of what was going on after doing a quick telepathic scan of the base when they touched down. The others quickly alighted from Steelwind's cargo bay still in their mecha forms and then she transformed herself and followed them downstairs to the control room where Sound Track knew Blaster was.

After some discussion with Sound Track and her team, she assigned Vanguard and Steelwind to escort the control room prisoners down to the lockup cells and stay there on guard. She thought it would be best to stuff any of the enemy there that they caught and put them under guard till something could be done with them. With the two super strong femmes present, it would also deter any from trying to set their comrades free or from those captured escaping.

Next she had Joyride take care of the computer system that Blaster had tried to help fix; being that one of the small femme's skills was computer programming.

She went through all the programs and got the security system up and running first. She showed all still present the status of the base's condition. Many areas were badly damaged but the security system had only been shut down and wasn't hard for her to get the secondary camera systems up to replace the ones in the primary system that were damaged.

The first thing that Sound Track got her to do was lockdown the base everywhere that led to the outside, effectively sealing everyone including themselves inside the mountain. That way anyone who wanted out would be stuck. She knew that Heartia had her little corner of the base protected and could count on a hiding place for any wounded they found and delivered to the medic.

Blaster did tell them about what Optimus had done to get inside when they had arrived but he was told that it wasn't a problem. The main entrance for outside truck deliveries had a separate set of lockdown doors for that reason. Joyride watched all the cameras keenly as all the exits were sealed off and marvelled at her programming skills.

Sound Track could see that there was barely any enemy activity left in the upper levels of the base as most had gone downstairs, obviously following Decellion. She had an idea where the femme was headed but couldn't deal with that until she had sorted out what was happening up here.

She also found Galvetron on the cameras alongside several of his Decepticon soldiers making their way downstairs also. After Joyride had opened up the communications systems again, Sound Track contacted any on her side still up in the upper part of the base to sweep through and collect any still left around that were injured or offline and take them to the medical bay, and take down any stray enemy still around and incarcerate them in the holding cells. She then asked the team leaders to accompany her downstairs, obtaining the co-operation of Optimus Prime. Freefall had just released herself from the medical bay despite Heartia's protest to join them.

Sound Track had left her sister with Ranger and Blaster in the control room to finish off what they were doing there and went with the other two into the lower part of the base.

*

In the mountains, Ella and the rest of the mechs were not faring any better. Having been overwhelmed and fighting back to overcome it on several occasions, these Decepticons and Destrons didn't seem to want to give in. But Ella was intent on removing this threat and then getting home.

They eventually took care of everyone on the ship. The Decepticons were all taken care of outside and were forced inside but a fair few Destrons got away. Ella decided that without Decellion, they didn't pose much of a threat. But the Decepticons did and so at least they were all in one place to be taken care of.

Heatwave and his team were still fighting fervently but he was also concerned for their safety. Their team was not really designed for heavy combat like the Roughnecks team were, nor were they as accomplished as the Autobots at fighting the Decepticons several of them had been taken out at the start of the fight. Out of the team he had started with including himself, only three were left. Himself; his daughter Midnight; and also Snowball. The rest had all been placed in their ship and were being attended to by Sunstar.

Also with them being repaired were some of Jazz's team, including Kup and Tracks. Sideswipe had also brought his brother in, who had a bad wound in his side and would most likely be out for the rest of the fight. Sideswipe had retuned to the battle as soon as Sunstar had told him he was okay to go.

Sunstar looked over all the injured and sighed. Kup looked in her direction and said, "Well at least you've got something to keep you occupied."

"True." She replied. "But the others will not live to your age, if all they do is keep fighting at the level they are fighting at right now." This comment made Kup laugh, and Sunstar let him go once she was done with repairs, with her quickly moving onto the next patient.

All that was left for them to do was round up the remaining soldiers inside the ship. But what they didn't know was that someone was watching from space. The Constructicons had orders from Galvetron to teleport out any Decepticons from Decellion's ship if any were captured by the enemy. They had been monitoring their fight and when it looked like their enemy would win, they moved them all out and left only the Destrons on the ship, who were already incarcerated.

Jazz had just captured the last Decepticon on the bridge. Kup and Sideswipe were watching the others nearby. Jazz suddenly exclaimed, "Hey where'd they all go?" As they had all disappeared in a flash of light. He turned to Kup and asked, "You think maybe they ported to Galvetron's ship?" Kup was thoughtful about the remark but Sideswipe just shrugged his shoulder plates.

Ella had just finished talking to Heatwave and had charged him with taking care of the Destrons that had gotten away while she took the two Roughnecks members, Sunstar and Burnout back home, along with the Autobots and their prisoners on this ship. She had walked in right when the captured Decepticons on the bridge had disappeared and she listened to the Autobots as they received reports from their comrades all over the ship with similar experiences.

She wondered if they had been transported to her base and rallied everyone aboard to get ready for a trip back home and secure the prisoners they still had. "If they've gone to Dragon Valley then we have to get back there yesterday. Heatwave is to finish searching for those Destrons on the loose here in Europe and we can take all the ones we have locked up here back to my base by using Decellion's ship.

Jazz looked at around at the strange technology and he asked, "You can fly this thing? It don' even look like its got controls?" He didn't know that technology like this ship was mentally controlled.

"It's not much different than any ship I've flown before." She stated calmly sitting down in what Jazz figured was the Captain's chair, whereas circuits all over the deck lit up in response to Ella thoughts.

She had previously gone through the lockdown protocols in the ships control system while Jazz and his team were rounding up prisoners and put a mental buffer between herself and the feint dark taint of the ships mind she was now attempting to pilot back to her base. Takeoff was fairly rough and it put many on the ship off but lift off was achieved and she was shortly flying the ship back to Dragon Valley.

*


	40. Chapter 40 Home Invasion

*Home Invasion*

*

During the flight home Ella had contacted Dragon Valley base to let them know what had happened on their end and that they were heading back with prisoners for the holding cells. Joyride also let Ella know what was happening there at the base and what they should expect when they arrive.

Ella was grateful for the heads up and advised the Autobots aboard what she had received. She however had an intention to go straight to where Decellion was when she arrived. She would have utilised her teleportation ability by now but being that the Autobots wouldn't have been able to fly the Dominion ship, she needed to bring them back herself then take care of her business after landing the ship.

*

The three leaders were still making their way down to the Biodome. Every once in a while Sound Track, who was travelling at the rear of the group, keeping guard, kept having to look back feeling that someone was following them. However each time she looked back she couldn't sense anyone. It was like there was a shadow following them and she couldn't discern the mind of their shadow, as her telepathic abilities couldn't pick up anyone.

Freefall also expressed the same concern but could not pick up anyone either with her own abilities, so both decided between themselves to remaining vigilant and keep their minds open to a possible attack from behind if it happened.

When Optimus, Sound Track and Freefall did arrive at the entrance, they entered cautiously, finding the scene before them worse than they thought.

Optimus had to applaud the efforts of these mecha. Twelve heavily armoured Alliance Special Forces mecha were before them confronting Galvetron and his small group of Decepticons, wanting to get past. Sound Track could tell from their telepathic imprints that they had already been through the ringer with some Necromancers and they were still willing to fight these Decepticons despite looking worse for wear.

Bonecrusher and her group had already been overwhelmed and heavily injured from their encounter with the Necromancers who had taken off and left them as soon as their mistress had summoned them inside the caves.

But Bonecrusher still forced herself to stand her ground before Galvetron and further defend the area before the caves, knowing that Decellion and the Necromancers were being taken care of by the other underground residents.

"Is this the best fighters these pathetic excuses for mecha can muster?" Taunted the Decepticon Commander to the very large femme T Rex. "You aren't even worth me wasting my time."

Optimus had noted to his two femme companions that he would take care of Galvetron while they, and possibly the Dinosaurers did their best with the rest of the Decepticons present as their were not very many of them here. "Then how about me, am I worth your time?" He asked boldly.

Galvetron turned to face the familiar vocals, the bane of his existence as he often thought of him. He calmly replied, "I was wondering when you would show up as you inevitably do." He ordered to Cyclonus, "You take care of the rest but Prime is mine."

"Understood Lord Galvetron." Cyclonus answered humbly. He turned and called out to the rest of the soldiers with him, "Decepticons attack."

*

Inside the caves Decellion wasn't faring any better.

Her first attempt to try and glide over to the temple had met with a failure as the aliens blocking her way had attacked in full force after she had tried to deflect them from her path. There were more here than she thought there was. And she was annoyed with her overconfidence in not bothering to check with her mind about their true number.

She had had to call in her Necromancers who had pretty much responded almost immediately when she had been attacked, leaving the battered Dinosaurers behind with time to recover before the Decepticons showed up.

She thought that by allowing her soldiers to engage in a fight with the Cybredeon she could once again escape and proceed to her goal, but she was now involved in a one on one fight with the hulking Cybredeon called Lilith.

It wasn't too long before the fight between Galvetron and Optimus reached a fever pitch but it had eventually gotten inside the caves. Galvetron had been determined to press Optimus inside while fighting him so he could get to where Decellion would possibly be.

He had just tossed his opponent against a wall dazing him and would have landed a deadly blow had the situation before him not captured his attention. He spotted the fight between the dark femme he was after and also some other alien.

Decellion was able to throw off her own opponent for a time and that's when Galvetron addressed her.

"I hope you haven't made me waste my time by making me come all the way down here to this maggot ridden planet into these filthy caves and not go back to my citadel empty handed Decellion."

She had her attention otherwise occupied by her current situation and had not seen Galvetrons entrance into these caves. "Patience, my Lord!" She chuckled, "Within the walls of these caves lies a source of true power that we will be able to use to our advantage." She managed to get the last part out before Galvetron was caught off guard by a revitalised Optimus who had just crash tackled him.

It wasn't long before her own opponent returned to fight her, but their conversation continued after they were able to once again talk with their respective opponents being overpowered by them again.

"Oh?" Asks Galvetron, "How so?" He was curious as he knew Decellion was only following her own agenda. If there was power to be had, only he deserved to wield it for himself and the Decepticon cause.

"That temple over there," She pointed, "Is the same design as the others that the Alliance have on some of their other planets. If we can get to it, there is a weapons platform inside it. While we won't be able to use this one in particular, the computers inside will have the design blueprints in its system, and all we have to do is download it and install inside the battle planet my people are building with nano technology." Decellion had not wanted to tell him of her idea completely, so she only told him part of it.

Inside the temple she had sensed more of the Matrice devices. If she could get hold of them then it was more she had towards her goal of possessing all twelve of them.

She did not tell Galvetron of this as she wanted them all for herself and she knew he was also after them. But she had grander ideas, being that she knew they could be used to power the ultimate weapon. She would use them against the Alliance to first conquer them and then rule them as was her right or so she believed.

She knew that if Galvetron knew what she did, he would most likely come to the same conclusion and try to wrestle that power from her and take it for himself. She supposed she could eradicate him, but for now, he and his Decepticons were useful lackeys to keep Ella's lot, as well her new companions at bay, these Cybertronian Autobots. And having their enemies, her new companions, fight them was beneficial to her in the long run.

But there was something else; back when she first formed her alliance with him she had sensed something in him that reminded her of her long lost love, Deukalion. Even now she still wondered why she hesitated to be rid of Galvetron should he try to usurp her, why she kept him around. _'Only time will tell.'_ She thought to herself. She finally decided just to wait till the situation presented itself before she would do anything, saving her energy right now for more important things.

The respite however didn't last very long, but before they both returned to their respective fights, Decellion uttered, "Be alert. We are not alone!"

Indeed they were not. For Ella and her team had arrived just now on the base, and Decellion could sense her old enemy anywhere now. She was looking forward to a fight with her again, despite the fact it may interfere with her plans right now.

*

Upon arrival Ella had directed someone to meet them on the still vacant runway of her base's air strip in the upper parts of the base.

Joyride, picking up their approach on the now active external scanners, had radioed them and Ella had the small femme release the doors leading to the runway. Despite the immense size of the ship, it was just barely able to fit inside the runway area and still have enough space to allow everyone to disembark, prisoners and all.

Vanguard and Steelwind had come up from the holding cells to escort the new arrivals downstairs, since Nightfall and his team were now guarding the rest of the prisoners they had found in cleaning up the base.

Seeing that things were being handled, Ella was keen to get elsewhere. But she needed help from some of those present to deal with the others downstairs. She turned to the Autobots present, "Jazz, can I get you and your team to come along?"

Jazz looked around at everyone and wondered if any were in the condition to keep fighting after what they had just gone through.

Sunstar volunteered to do a quick scan of everyone to check their medical status if need be to establish their effectiveness for another battle.

"There is a team of Decepticons here on this base that got in. Looking over the base with my sensors, it seems Joyride was able to get the teleport dampeners and the door lockdown working before those Decepticons that disappeared out of our fight could get in here."

Jazz thought. It wouldn't be fair to go from one battle to another as his team was weary and needed to refuel from their heavy battle in the Caucasus, and Sunstar had volunteered to check them. "Well everyone?" He asked of his team.

"Let's just get this over with Jazz." Stated a battered Sunstreaker, obviously unhappy about his current physical status.

"Yeah, the more Decepticons the merrier!" Mused his anxious twin, eager for more fighting.

Ella added, "And to help you out, here." She gestured, using her energy field she covered the startled Autobots. Instantly refuelling them and repairing any wounds and damages.

"Now why didn't you do that before?" Questioned Tracks, "I could've been back to my beautiful self ages ago."

Ella sighed at his conceited sense of self.

Sunstreaker snorted, "Beautiful? Hah! Beautiful my aft! We both know I'd drive circles around your chassis any day wannabe."

A fight would have broken out if Kup had not intervened. "Stow it you two, we've got more important things to worry about."

"Nice to see that some things never change with those two arguing over who looks the prettiest!" Mused Vanguard.

This got laughs from some of them, as well as death stares from Sunstreaker and Tracks. Sideswipe however got a smack over the headcase from his brother for laughing at him, whereas they started play fighting.

Ella interjected the friendly carousing, "Ok folks lets go." She left Sunstar to join Heartia in the medical bay, and Burnout chose to go and try to retrieve some information on the enemy from the captured prisoners using her unique methods.

*

In the Biodome, Sound Track had picked up on Ella's presence here on the base.

She hadn't the time yet to contact Ella due to the fact she was bust battling the three units that made up Reflector. The three Decepticons were having a hard time making use of their light manipulation skills as Sound Track's optical units were not the same as everyone else's and she wasn't affected by lights at all.

Freefall wasn't having fun either. She had not been at 100% capacity when she had come down here with the others to help out. The only reason she was keeping ahead of the attacks from her opponents was due to her skills, despite her lack of energy.

Since Ella had asked her and Bonecrusher to give up their Power Matrices, she wasn't able to heal as fast as she normally would, not that it mattered to her, she could live without it.

But she couldn't last forever.

When she finally did falter, the Decepticon soldiers finally getting hold of her, was when the mysterious shadowy figure emerged from anonymity.

It was Starscream.

All this time he had hidden himself, watching all the goings on. He had found a way to mask himself from everyone, he had learned to project his thoughts on others and manipulate illusions within those minds, therefore creating an illusion that he wasn't even there to begin with, which worked to his advantage.

It had not worked entirely he noticed on those like Freefall and Sound Track who were psionically active and so could tell something wasn't right, but they hadn't seen him and followed along to where he was now.

When he had seen what happened to Freefall, his old self would have just walked right past and continue on to where he thought the real action was happening. But there was something stopping him.

He did not want to think it was because of some feelings he had for this femme he had come to show some respect for, as he wasn't ready just yet to admit that to himself. That and his own still apparent selfish pride as well as his honour as a warrior would not allow him to show any feelings in the matter.

He had to admit to himself that he had changed somewhat from what he used to be since coming here to Dragon Valley under Ella's care, but that hadn't dulled his warrior's edge. He grumbled to himself, and while still unseen took aim at his former comrades that were holding Freefall by her arms, whilst a third was pummelling her in her abdominal area.

When the blasts came out of nowhere, Freefall had a brief glimpse just for a nano second that someone was definitely there, but before she could recognize who, it disappeared just as suddenly as it had appeared. That was until she saw him.

She wasn't going to thank him or say anything that would be seen as kindly in regards to his warrior's stature, it wasn't his style to accept things like that, or even tolerate them for that matter. That was something she had come to know of him since spending all this time working with him.

She sat there on her knees venting her system to get her cooled again, looking up at him. He made no attempt to help her up and just stood there looking back down at her. What he said next, kind of surprised her.

"Well?" He asked, "I expected more thanks than this for having just saved your aft from them when I could've just as easily left you."

He crossed his arms and began to walk away when Freefall responded. She got herself up and replied grinning, "Thenk you comrade Starscream."

He turned back to her and saw her grinning. If she had not been looking at him she would have missed it. A slight twitch at the corner of his mouth that usually denoted his trademark arrogant smirk, instead came out as a soft expression. He looked away as soon as he realised what he'd done, to prevent it being seen. But she had already seen it and it made her grin.

He commented blithely, "You're welcome. But don't expect me to do it ever again." Then walked away in the direction of the cave entrance which was not too far away from them.

It was then that Ella and her accompanying group turned up and joined in.

*

In Port Angeles, Adam Drake had temporarily transferred his base of operations here from the New York office to oversee his little project. However not all the humans were happy with the idea and allowed their emotions to run rampant.

Even though the military project wasn't public knowledge, his project was, and many parents were protesting to the idea of kids going into battle. Day after day employees had to wade through the crowd surrounding the front entrance of the Drake Corp offices. And it was getting on his nerves.

He knew his rival had something to do with this. He knew that he had been making speeches to the masses of the business world in order to convince them that Adam's project was a very bad idea and a complete waste of time.

He hadn't been able to prove it yet, but he figured that Holmes had something to do with this international group also, the League of Humanity, that had been making terrorist threats and actions on his business as well as to the US Government or anyone in general that were supportive of mecha or technological superiority, spreading their xenophobic fears upon the populace.

He knew it was going to get worse before it was going to get better with them, he knew they would prey completely on everyone's worst fears.

And even though the talks for the induction into the Alliance were still not solidified, he would go ahead with his project no matter what got in his way, irregardless of these terrorists trying to breathe fear into people.

He was happy that Ella's associate Felicia had helped him with what he wanted in regards to the first round of students for the mecha he wanted to train before the training area at the University was even finished with construction and teachers were assigned. He was glad that ball had started rolling.

Right now though his attention were focused on the nearby Dragon Valley and what was going on there. Even though it was a fair distance from him, he could still use his natural psionic abilities to see and hear some of what was going on. He was glad that his mother had heeded his warnings and made plans to take care of it.

*

In the Dominion area of space, preparations were being made to finalise the last bit of construction that they were building for their battle planet.

They did not know at this time about Decellions plan and what she had in mind, but generally did not care.

While she thought of them as 'her' people, they did not really think of her the same way.

Since her re-emergence, many religious groups within the Dominion who had been worshipping her dark semblance for millennia had fervently fought to gain voice within the Dominion's council, but to no avail. However the ones that were in power now were more in favour of war and also of themselves.

Many had turned their backs on what she and Deukalion had represented a very long time ago and made plans for their own domination of the galaxy. With or without their once grand figureheads. Hence them building the battle planet in the first place, an idea that had formed in their minds long before Decellion had even turned up.

*

The Alliance council had spies working undercover within the battle planet sphere and had been apprised of the situation as soon as their agents had been able to send the information. They knew that if that mobile planet was operational, it would create problems for them, as there were very few weapons amongst their combined armada that would be able to hold their own against it.

One bonus they supposed was that they did manage to get blueprints for it, some but not all.

While they would not be able to determine any weak points from the very little information they had already gotten, they could possibly make use of the information if they ever wished to construct their own version of a battle planet. But that was not their wish at this time.

They had the inclination that the Dominion fully intended to bring their new destructive toy within the boundaries of the Alliance to test out the siege engines' weapons strength as a show of power to the Alliance. They did however have the information that the planet was not yet operational and what type of weapons it had available also, it gave them more time to formulate strategies in regards to dealing with it.

If the worst happened and the Dominion were able to get past the outer defences of their territory with their battle planet. They were not sure that the full force of the Alliance Armada would be able to do something about it.

But they wouldn't let it come to that. The Council members had faith that if they were to triumph this event, something would be provided them in regards to protection of what the Alliance had stood for, for so long and what they had survived against.

They had certain individuals in mind who they knew had firepower that could affect the Dominion weapon but did not know if anyone existed who could outright destroy it.

They knew that not all the Power Matrices were in their possession and without them, using the weapons platforms on certain planets within the Alliance would be useless without the keys to start them all up. They only needed one active for all of them to be. So they needed to get all the devices back in their possession to do it and they knew just who to ask for that mission.

*

Ella had spotted Freefall and Starscream going into the caves right when she and the others had turned up. She supposed that Freefall knew what she was doing and left her to it, even though she had Starscream in her company.

She had noticed that Decellion and her troupe of Necromancers weren't around, as well as the fact that the Commanders of the respective Cybertronian factions were noticeably absent also

She motioned to Sound Track mentally and started off towards the caves, leaving the Autobots and the Dinosaurers here to fight the Decepticons as they seemed to know what they were doing for now and did not need any interference from her.

For some time after they had gone into the caves they watched themselves carefully, as they didn't know where the enemy was. It didn't matter much to Sound Track as she just used her sonic reverberation skills to see, but it was dark and Ella didn't like the dark.

It wasn't long before they found something though.

"It took you long time to finelly turn up." Commented Freefall, surprising them when they turned a corner and found the purple femme there with Starscream waiting.

"Did ya'll have ta bring him in here?" Sound Track said snidely. She didn't like Starscream and wasn't going to hide her opinion. And she wasn't happy about him being down here in the caves with them when there were so many things that he could turn on them for.

Freefall held him back from making a move on Sound Track for her comment. "Ve vatch them." She stated. Sound Track and Ella looked to see what she was pointing at and saw that Decellion and her Necromancers were being handled by the Cybredeon close by.

Galvetron was also close and had his digits full with Optimus Prime. Since knocking his cannon off his arm Optimus had sought to try and fight with him on his level, knowing that Galvetron was stronger than he was, but he still tried anyhow to subdue him.

Ella looked at those with her and projected a mental thought. Sound Track and Freefall immediately went out to help Optimus Prime and confront Galvetron.

Ella followed on with a reluctant Starscream behind her, who once again engaged his mental cloud ability.

*

Back at Dragon Valley base, both Flashdance and Joyride were busy typing away at computer terminals in the control room.

Flash' and her two Autobot companions had managed to get inside the base doors when everything had been sealed off. When they had sighted them closing, Flash' had told Laura to take her friends back to the secret area under the University and stay there, even passing along a restricted access card to the youth for their own protection to lock themselves in if need be. She figured they would be fine considering she'd left Laura in charge of the group.

While they were apprised of the situation when arriving at the control room, Bumblebee and Cliffjumper had chosen to go and join their comrades along with Hound and Blaster also. The femmes let them go saying that if they wanted to then they were free to go; there was nothing that they really needed them for here in the control room anyhow, as Flashdance now had everything in order.

Flashdance had repaired enough of the system here in the control room so they could get it working to almost 100% again but there was the matter of all the damage. At least with Joyride's help Flash' could get the computers own nano healing system online and help it to deal with any repairs while at the same time they could administer any small repairs themselves that the base computer couldn't fix. They had been working non stop since Flashdance had arrived, in order to get it back to normal operational status again.

*

Hound and Bumblebee were chatting amongst themselves on the way towards their destination. "You know it would be great if we could get a system like that for our base's maintenance. That automatic nano-healing process Flashdance told us about."

"Only so you wouldn't have to manually do all the repairs when they ask us to right?" Asked Hound curiously.

"Well it would free us up to go out looking for more Decepticons rather than be stuck doing so much maintenance now wouldn't it?" Bumblebee replied.

"Good point!" Exclaimed the green mech.

Blaster grinned in response to their conversation. He had been around Joyride as she had begun to fix up that system and so had been able to get more information on it than the others did. But he too knew how good a system like that would be and how beneficial it would be for the Autobots in their war with the Decepticons, he also knew how tedious maintenance duty was, having done it many times on their base.

*

Back in the control room.

Joyride however wasn't having the best fun, having had to get under her console and do some manual repairs. "Uh oh! It bein' a good t'ing dat we almos' fix all'o dis stuff up!" She said surprised as she quickly moved back out of the way when something started to flash.

Just then the fire alarm sounded as the console that Joyride had just been working on sparked up and let off a small explosion underneath.

Flashdance saw he fire and pressed a button on her console that summoned the robotic fire extinguishers, who took care of the fire. Then she looked at her younger sibling and asked accusingly, "Joyride! What'd ya'll do this tahme?"

Joyride looks at Flashdance innocently, "I di'n do it."

"Sure ya'll didn't." Came her sister's disbelieving response. Flash' just shook her head and turned her attention back to her own work.

Ranger couldn't help but laugh at the instance as well as the casual relationship between the sisters, just as she had with her own.

*

In the caves, while Ella and her companions were trying to hold down Galvetron, Decellion had managed to get away from them. But not only them, she had also gotten away from Lilith whom she had been fighting. Lilith had been injured badly and could not fight for now, lying on the cave floor surrounded by her brood.

While the surrounding Cybredeon had their attention diverted on their Queen, and Ella and her lot were focused on them just for a moment, Galvetron made his move to overcome the hold the three femmes had on him. They cursed themselves for taking their attention from the Decepticon leader.

Galvetron badly injured both Freefall and Sound Track, knocking them both offline. Ella's Valkyrie mecha form was also damaged, and she needed to take the time to recompose her damaged circuits, especially since she had drained herself willingly to fix the Autobots earlier.

Coming back online was harder for her right now. But then she realised that her two female companions were gone. Then she saw where they were. Galvetron had flown over the chasm to meet Decellion on the other side. She must have told the Decepticon leader that only Matrice holders could get into the temple and so he took the two femmes to use as keys.

It was too late for her to do anything. She was still healing and had to watch painfully as her two enemies entered the temple. Decellion turning around and grinning at her as the door closed shut on them after they had gone inside.

She slammed her fist on the ground in frustration and shook the entire cave by doing so, startling some of the Cybredeon. They however were too occupied with trying to help their Queen's injuries to be affected with her temper outburst for long, which she had immediately regretting doing as soon as she realised Decellion had gotten to her.

They had managed to take care of the Necromancers at least, as she could not see them anymore, unless Decellion had taken the free ones with her into the temple. She doubted that as the Cybredeon brood wouldn't have allowed it, whether they were helping their Queen or not. She could feel that many of the Necromancers were imprisoned in their holding areas, while others were strewn about on the ground and not moving, and knew that the captured ones would never be let out ever again. The Cybredeon would end up performing their transformation ritual on them forcibly in order to return them to their bloodstock once more to remove their threat.

Ella looked around the clearing where she was still trying to get up. Optimus was offline, not terminally damaged but enough to put him in stasis lock till his repairs could be completed. Her own repairs were going very slowly but she had decided to risk helping him. She got up and wandered over to Optimus, giving as much healing energy as she could to bring him back online again, then she went and helped out Lilith to do the same.

Once both were up, Ella was thanked for her help and she advised them of the situation. Lilith was livid and offered to take both of them over the chasm to help get the interlopers out of the temple she was responsible for protecting.

Optimus did query why he was asked to come along though.

'_Because you are one of them.'_ Came Lilith's thought as she pointed to his spark chamber.

Optimus then acknowledged that it was because he was a holder of the Matrix, not just one Matrix anymore as he had discovered some time ago, but one of a dozen devices held by others through out the galaxy. He understood that if his enemies got hold of all twelve including his own, there would be problems for not just him and his soldiers, but for everyone. "Then let's get going and do what we have to do."

Lilith was now strong enough to carry both over the chasm, but Ella hesitated. Starscream was gone. She figured he must have utilised his new cloak ability and followed the others into the temple, as she could not see or sense him anywhere, and it wouldn't be like him to run especially now that he could hide in plain sight and watch others.

"Is there something wrong Ella?" Asked Optimus.

"No, everything's fine." She replied. She also hoped that the others outside the caves were faring well and could handle things till they were done here.

It wasn't too long before Lilith had taken them over the chasm and they had entered the temple not far behind their enemies who were already inside.

*


	41. Chapter 41 Familiar Things

*Familiar Things*

*

In spite of their best efforts, Jazz and the other Autobots were unable to defeat all of the Decepticons that they were fighting in this underground Biodome. And after the cave in, many had either disappeared or had been captured.

He had to admit that it was a lapse in his judgement by thinking they could defeat all of them, even with Kup's guidance and having powerful Decepticons like Cyclonus choreographing the enemies manoeuvres, they still didn't get a foothold to overcome them.

At some point during the fight, the roof of the Biodome, which was solid rock for the most part, decided that it had had enough of all the blasts and impacts it was receiving from the fighting inside of it and started to collapse.

It was one final blast from Bonecrusher's particle beam cannon that did it. It had penetrated right through the rock when it had been aimed at a flying Decepticon and she had missed, sending the immense energy blast straight through to the surface.

Unfortunately that hole up to the surface had been big enough for the still free Decepticons to fly out of and escape the base in, leaving their downed comrades and the Autobots to deal with the falling debris.

Jazz knew they wouldn't go too far due to the fact, as far as he knew, Galvetron was still somewhere down underground with his own leader and some others, dealing with another situation.

Some of his comrades as well as Bonecrusher's team had been buried under the rubble and he and some others were helping to get them out right now. Kup had organised a small group to escort the still online Decepticons they had captured to the holding cells along with help from the Storm Wings team. He had been gruff with them at first, recognising that some off them had been Decepticons themselves at some stage, he understood why Ella had them here now. But still, he didn't take his optics off them or freely trust them.

The ones that had been uncovered from under the rubble who were still operational helped them to escort the others who weren't operational. Still Jazz had to wonder how the others in the cave were doing and when they would be coming back, as well as wonder if and when the Decepticons who had escaped would be back.

*

The Cybredeon gathered and watched the temple after their Queen had disappeared into it, wondering if any more visitors were going to grace their territory.

While the rest left to their alcoves to deal with their prisoners, the dark ones as they called them, to fix something with them that should never had been removed from them in the first place.

It was a reason they disliked the Dominion. While the Dominion itself had never been here on their territory, on Earth physically, they were still partially linked to all the others in the race, if only vaguely, to all the other clans who existed everywhere else in the universe. And they knew about the atrocities that had been served by that dark one, Decellion, to their kind over time.

All they really wished to do, is when they had the opportunity to, was to capture their fallen brethren and return them to where they belonged, which was what they were going to do to their prisoners through their ritual.

When Decellion's process had been performed on a Cybredeon individual, it had not only warped their mind, but also cut them off from the Cybredeons psychic web. But funnily enough, when there were enough of these Necromancers, back when they had first been created, a psychic web once again established itself and then they had their own system of communication. The Cybredeon never liked the darkness that emanated from these Necromancers back during the wars and liked it even less now, which was why they were adamant about getting them all back into their fold by any means possible.

*

In the underground temple, Lilith, who was the guardian of this place,

knew where she was going and led their little party to their destination.

It also gave Ella some time to discuss with Optimus, as they both followed along, about the history of places like this and why the Alliance still preserved them and to tell him more about what the Matrices were for and who made them.

Optimus looked around the walls, as Ella had finished telling him some stories, and noticed that every inch of every nook and cranny he could see was decorated with picture graphs, inscriptions, and all manner of symbols.

As they wandered along behind the Cybredeon Queen, Ella did notice that some Necromancers had been able to get inside the temple with Decellion and Galvetron, and Lilith's presence here was seriously agitating them.

When they had started to encounter the first of them, they had decided between themselves that they would have to watch their backs from now on, because although they were afraid of Lilith, they wouldn't hesitate to attack them.

Even though Ella's energy was bottoming out when they had arrived and come into the temple, there was a strange air here. The closer they got to what they thought may be the core of the temple, their energy levels started to rise, empowering them once again.

*

Jazz and Kup had finally gotten all of their comrades out of the rubble and after they had sent off the injured ones to the medical bay, they took account of the situation. That was when Bonecrusher had an idea. She asked if they wanted to come along on a mission.

While in the medical bay Heartia had suggested going down into the caves to offer support should their friends need it. Of the base's residents, Burnout and Ranger had volunteered. And Heartia had insisted Sunstar go along to help with any medical concerns, despite the white femmes protests of staying to help here.

Bonecrusher had the idea due to the fact her team was all out of commission bar herself, and her strong constitution still had her functional and with only minor damage to her powerful armour. Even though she was without her Matrice now, she was still in proximity to it, and obviously knew something the others didn't. You didn't have to possess that Matrices spirit in order to gain power from it.

It was the spirit of her golden Matrice that was still calling her to the temple despite her injuries. And somehow she was able to draw some power and strength from it despite the fact she did not currently possess it. She wondered if the others could do the same.

*

Ella and Optimus had finally reached the chamber that Lilith had led them to. While the Cybredeon Queen went elsewhere, they both took up a defensive position on the earthen ridge around what they thought was the lowest part of the temple, where they had found their enemy. Due to the columns on this ridge, they could hide themselves very well. They watched Decellion and Galvetron below trying in vain to remove the floating device from the pedestal on the lower chamber situated in the centre of the room.

Ella also noticed the half comatose forms of Freefall and Sound Track, manacled and being guarded by Necromancers. The two femmes wouldn't ordinarily be so easily subdued, so they must be using something to drain their energies, despite the power this place was giving out.

Starscream was also here she noticed, watching them in his cloak mode. She wondered what it was he hoped to gain from all this, whether he had reverted to his old self or not. And why he was just standing around watching everyone.

Each time Decellion had tried to remove the device in the centre of the room her hand would pass right through it as if she were a ghost.

On the ridge around the lower chamber Lilith had positioned herself. The female Cybredeon had been watching her enemy so intently but made the mistake of not watching her footing and loosened some rock around her feet, making some noise, alerting Decellion and Galvetron to her presence and that of her comrades situated around them up above.

She was not far from Sound Track and Freefall and attempted to wake them with her telepathic skills, only managing to rouse them slightly due to their manacles.

Ella was still on the upper level, but had descended to the lower level, attempting to get close to where Starscream was. Optimus however stayed hidden and started lining up his Ion cannon to take a shot at either of the enemy.

And then all hell broke loose.

*

Back at the base, Bonecrusher had escorted a few residents as well as Jazz and the Autobots, all but Kup who remained behind to keep the injured company; Blaster, Bumblebee, Cliffjumper and Tracks. As they had all been subjected to the rubble and needed medical attention.

Sunstar led the small group of her team mates but was happy to let Bonecrusher take leadership of the group as she was senior in rank and also in age and fighting experience. She had not been happy with having to attend this little side mission, as she wanted to help the others in the medical bay, as was her primary function and occupation of being a medic but she understood why Heartia sent her along. She was also a fighter and could help Bonecrusher and the others. Not that she even liked fighting in the first place, but knew it was a necessity due to war.

Sunstar knew that there was a bigger battle coming and didn't want to take part but knew she would have to.

When they arrived at the caves Bonecrusher had them spread out to find a way across the chasm to the temple, not knowing that were was no way across other than flying over.

But Bonecrusher was worried about the temple and who was inside it. She could see that some of the Cybredeon that were here on the outer ledges were worried too. She didn't have too much experience in dealing with this strange species but she was familiar with them and their ways having come across them in her work with the Alliance many times before, and also when she was working with Novara, Ella's mother.

The thing was, it was like part of her was already inside the temple and it wanted the rest of her, her body in there to complete itself. And the only way she knew to get over this deep cavern was by flight, but her thrusters weren't working as well as they could right now, repairs were needed. She transformed into her robot mode and settled into a meditative pose to concentrate.

Jazz would've asked what she was doing when he came back to her spot, till he saw her just stand there and vent ever so slowly. He had performed similar techniques in the past when he was being trained in combat techniques in his academy days in the military, as well as at later times when he had the rare opportunity to do so with Sunstreaker or Prowl.

While Bones' was getting herself ready, he let his own mind wander. He thought about Prowl and his group and what they were doing. He had not heard from them in ages. He had thought they were down at the Ark doing repairs or had been around at Dragon valley base but there hadn't been any response from them at all, like they had gone incognito somewhere. He had to let it go for now as Bonecrusher woke herself up and transformed back to her alt mode and asked Jazz to get on.

She engaged her thrusters. They sputtered to life at first and then went out. Bonecrusher growled in frustration then tried again. She went inside part of her system and forced them to work, finally getting them in full working order and able to carry herself and Jazz over the gap to the door.

The problem was that when they arrived it couldn't be opened. Bonecrusher quickly noticed that two were needed to open the door. She wasn't sure why and wondered why the doors thrummed slightly when she touched it. She surmised it must be due to her connection to her Matrice unit.

When she looked over at Jazz, he was looking over the switches of the door on his side She still had her hands on her switch, and when he ran his digits over his switch the doors actually opened. She smiled wondering what kind of potential some of these Cybertronians actually had.

Jazz caught her expression and asked, "What?"

"Nothing." She replied. Right now was not the time to go into details about what she had noticed. It was a subject she would have to broach later.

She contacted the others and told them how they would have to get across and soon they had gathered across from where she had just been with Jazz. She asked those who did have the capabilities of flight to make their way over and help the ones who didn't.

Once all were across the gap, they quickly and cautiously went inside the temple after their friends.

*

When Decellion had started fighting, her Necromancers did not. She did not want to engage in a fight but wanted to focus her attention on getting the key that would open the vault and the weapons platform so she could get what she came for.

She had screamed at them more than once to attack but still they refused. Despite her and Galvetron having to fire their weapons at their attackers on their own, they got no support from them, as it was due to Lilith's presence.

Galvetron did not really care about fighting alongside Decellion. All he cared about was showing his superiority over the others and getting his hands on whatever it was that Decellion was trying to get.

That was when he noticed Starscream.

His ex Air Commander just appeared out of nowhere and casually leaned on the pedestal. _'I don't see what the fuss is about?'_ Starscream thought to himself, _'It doesn't look like much at all, this little thing.' _He tries to make a grab for it as Decellion did but his hand goes right through the floating device.

Just as he was making his move to grab the device, he was charged by Galvetron. The Decepticon leader seeing his chance to do away with another bane of his existence once and for all. Galvetron had wondered to himself as to why he had not just shot and destroyed Starscream with his arm cannon, but he guessed it was due to the fact he wanted the satisfaction of terminating him with his own two hands.

Elsewhere Ella could see that Optimus was handling himself well in a gunfight with Decellion since Galvetron now had his attention otherwise occupied by a startled Starscream, to which a fight between the two was now happening.

She saw it as her opportunity to go and help her friends. The Necromancers that had been guarding them both had already retreated into the temple halls with Lilith hot on their heels as well as after the other strewn about the place. She knew Lilith would not condone having these darker aspects of her species free within the temple and would seek to drive them all outside where her loyal Cybredeon could capture them.

Ella quickly removed Freefall and Sound Track's manacles. Both were only just barely online and very low on energy due to the manacles as they started to come around as they began to be affected by the temples energy grid. And when they were fully awake again, they too joined the battle.

Elsewhere she could hear Galvetron raving at Starscream, who was just barely keeping ahead of the Decepticon Commander and making full use of his new power levels, finally happy he could at least keep up a little more than he used to, especially since Galvetron had terminated him the first time without trouble.

"How many times have a told you Starscream, never touch what is rightfully mine." Starscream taunted him as he disappeared behind his cloak again, "Ah but you see dear Lord Galvetron, finders keepers, or as the humans like to say, first come first served!" Galvetron continues to rant and rage as he tries shooting at where the voice is coming from only to miss again and again, and have to put up with Starscream's obnoxious high pitched laugh as the seeker phased into and out of his cloak.

The fight was in full swing for some time when the rest arrived. A vicious roar could be heard from deeper in the temple halls. It made everything shake. It was a fearless enough roar to make the fighting stop for a moment.

Then the owner of the roar appeared. It was Bonecrusher, accompanied by a few other mecha.

Optimus was hiding behind one of the temple columns when he saw Jazz and the rest. While the others immediately sprang into action to protect their Commander, Jazz, stayed with him.

"You don't know how well timed your entrance is Jazz!" Exclaimed Optimus.

"Well hey," Commented Jazz, "I'm just on time as usual!"

Optimus laughed at the comment then started issuing orders to his soldiers now around the room and then confronted Galvetron. "Give it up Galvetron, you're surrounded." He stated sternly.

The enemy Commander gave his opponent once last punch to the midsection after he had gotten hold of him again before he got up to face Optimus.

Starscream scrambled out of the way once Galvetron's attention was diverted.

Galvetron noticed as he looked around that he was surrounded by a small group of Autobots who he assumed had just got here and were eager to rush to their deaths trying to take him on. He didn't feel the slightest sympathy or regret at wanting to terminate them all right now and right here, all he wanted was the power that Decellion had told him about and that's all he was going to get, even if everyone in this temple were going to be terminated in order for him to get it.

*

Inside the base, a barrage of artillery fire could be felt through the ground. It was coming from outside the base.

It had gotten Kup's attention and he rushed as quickly as his old servos could carry him to the control room where he found Joyride and Flashdance monitoring a battle above ground.

There was a familiar looking ship firing upon the Decepticons that had eluded them earlier. Apparently, these Decepticons had taken the time to stay and lick their wounds while waiting for their Commander to return to them, but had been caught off guard getting attacked from outside the base when they thought all their enemies were trapped underground.

Kup couldn't believe his optics. Was that ship what he thought it was? Was his old Optics failing him? Was he seeing things? By then his Autobot companions had been repaired to operational status and he had Flashdance call them up to the control room to confirm his suspicions.

"Great Primus!" Exclaimed Cliffjumper when he saw what was on the screens.

Bumblebee added, "Is that what I think it is?"

Prowl, who had found a way to teleport into the base despite the lockdowns in place fully materialized behind the group as Cliffjumper was talking. They had not heard or noticed him and so he replied to Bumblebee's remark, "It is exactly what it appears to be my friends."

Kup turned to Prowl and said confused, "How did you do it?"

All Prowl did was smile, which was very unlike him.

*

Lilith had reappeared after driving off most of the Necromancers and had left them at the mercy of her Cybredeon outside the temple. She returned to the room where the others were and addressed Decellion when she saw that both the enemy were subdued for now.

'_I warned you that you would not be welcome here. If you do no leave then I will make you leave.' _

Most of them had realised by now that Lilith was speaking directly into their minds. Cybredeons did not have the same vocal chords as the mecha did and so could not speak their language physically, she could only speak it into their minds.

"And what makes you think I will leave without the prize that is rightfully mine!" she yelled at Lilith angrily.

No one had noticed that Ella, while everyone else was otherwise occupied, had sidled up to the pedestal and wanted to obtain the device therein to stop Decellion form getting it.

Galvetron had his attention on Decellion and thought, 'So this is what you're after, the power, all for yourself? I don't think so. Not if I get it first.' That was when he noticed what Ella was doing.

He turned and made a grab for the femme and made contact, despite being fired upon by several of the Autobots. Optimus ordered them to stop firing the moment Ella had come into their line of fire while being held by Galvetron.

Decellion had been cornered by Lilith elsewhere and so could not get to Galvetron right now to get the device from him for herself.

What happened when Galvetron grabbed the device out of Ella's hand was unusual. She was still in possession of it, but when both came into contact with it at the same time, they were both engulfed in a field of energy and were knocked out instantly and the device was knocked on the floor.

Decellion got away from Lilith and grabbed the device while the others were otherwise occupied. She made for the pedestal where she inserted and turned the key to activate and open the chamber beneath them. Some of the Autobots did try and stop her but once the key was in her possession she threw up a field of dark energy which deflected all their blasts. She realised she could draw on power from external sources while she kept hold of the key.

They all had to take steps back as the floor beneath them dissolved to reveal another chamber beneath.

Decellion was oblivious to them being there now having got what she wanted and gone off to find what else she was looking for.

Lilith quickly gave chase and disappeared after her.

Once she took off after Decellion, she was quickly followed by Bonecrusher and Freefall.

While Jazz had gone down to the level below to look around, the twins had stayed with Optimus and were assisting in helping to keep a watch on Galvetron, and others had gone in search of more enemy to fight if there was any to fight that is. And Sunstar was dealing with both Starscream and Ella on the upper level.

Starscream demands, "What's wrong with her?" He had noticed that she was partially out of it and had begun to squirm and convulse while Sunstar was trying to use her medical expertise.

The twins were also watching Starscream. They trusted him as much as they had when he was still their enemy, but for now they only tolerated his presence.

"And what makes you think her condition is any of your business, you slagger?" Commented Sunstreaker.

"It's my business because I make it so." Came back the surly remark, "Why don't you just pay attention to the job your Commander gave you, you car show reject."

"Why you..." Snarled Sunstreaker.

Sideswipe had to grab his brother, "Sunny, don't let that jerk off excuse of a flying bird brain get to you ok."

"And just who are you calling a bird brain, you idiot!" Starscream replied back to Sideswipe.

Optimus was watching the goings on and addressed the twins, "As much as I am loathe to agree with Starscream, twins, he is right. Just keep watch on Galvetron and stay out of trouble, both of you." He said sternly. Then he turns his attention to the deck below. "Everything alright down there Jazz?" He called out.

"A-ok Boss mech!" Jazz yelled back with his left hand's thumb up. He found Sound Track milling around checking out the surrounding rooms and went to join her.

He chatted with her to ease the silence of the temple, "Becoming a habit I think, us being alone t'gether ain't it?" he mused.

Sound Track raised her brow under her visor and dryly replied, "Very charming." She turned to face him and said, "This is neithah tha tahme nor tha place ya'll."

Jazz knew they were in the middle of a fight but he couldn't help being his playful self. He reached out when she had turned away again and zapped her on her aft just for the fun of it.

She turned instantly and had the surliest look on her faceplate. All he did was just grin. Her expression melted and she sighed, "Just get back to that matter at hand ya'll." And she walked off to check more rooms.

He wandered off in the opposite direction chuckling and then started whistling and singing to himself.

*

Elsewhere in the temple, Lilith had lost track of Decellion. But she had run into some of the others.

Bonecrusher had also turned up. She was still trying to find her after she had taken the Matrices that were stored in another room.

She noted this to the femmes, 'S_he must have the key with her still for her to be able to enter the storage room.'_ As she sensed the approach of another familiar mind.

Bonecrusher replied, "As much as I would not like to admit it, she has gotten away from us and with the three Matrices that were here. My own Matrice was amongst them. I do not know where she is right now. It is like she has disappeared from the temple completely. My scanners can no longer detect her."

'_That would be the key's doing. She will have access to all the various powers of the Matrices through it.'_ Commented Lilith.

"So we're pretty much toast if she gets control of all the Matrices ya'll" Asks Sound Track.

'_Yes that key is Ella's Talisman and it can grant Decellion access to the weapons platform and through it she can access all of the matrices power without having to possess them, and she will be able to use it to find the others she does not yet have also. We have to get it back and now.'_

"Thank you so much for all of that delicious information. I will make use of it!" Came a female voice from above them.

They turned and saw her above them. She had already downloaded the blueprints for the weapons platform she wanted and was now hanging around to taunt and gloat. "With all that information I have now you won't be able to stop me now." She said then instantly teleported out of the room.

Bonecrusher understood straight away. "We have to get to Optimus Prime..."

"...He has one o'tha Power Matrices!" Exclaimed Sound Track as she finished Bones' sentence. They rushed out of the weapons platform room and arrived back where the others were just in time to be too late.

*

Decellion had found out how to warp the time-space field power belonging to one of the units and had stepped back through it to arrive right behind a very surprised Optimus Prime. They knew she wouldn't leave without getting one unit that was so close to her.

Optimus had been expecting an attack from Galvetron who was still offline on the floor, not from Decellion teleporting right behind him. But just as suddenly as she had arrived she had attacked Optimus and ripped out the Matrix in his chest casing and teleported away before the Autobots could react. She then came back and took with her the offline body of Galvetron and disappeared.

She was annoyed she could not retrieve her Necromancers and would have to worry about them later. She had tried to find her ship but that was also missing. So all she could do was retreat to Galvetron's ship in space.

She was satisfied with the fact that she had the means to find the rest of the Matrices now as well as be in possession of the key that would link her to their power and all she had to do was let one of her enemies get it for her. She also had the weapons platform plans she wanted to build for the battle planet her Dominion were still constructing.

*

Sunstar was busily attending to Optimus when Sound Track and Bonecrusher raced upstairs to see how what had happened. The white femme had to revert to her human sized Biomode to heal the damage Decellion had caused when she had suddenly ripped open his chest to get at and take his Matrix.

But that wasn't all that was happening.

Ella had disappeared from her spot on the floor. Starscream was standing only inches away from her when it had happened. Lilith had also gone from the lower deck, obviously sensing the disappearance of the femme. No one knew where either had gone and so went looking for them.

Lilith had an idea about where she had wandered off too, a familiar place to her. In another part of the temple she had found her.

She didn't quite understand it, but she had surmised that when that flash of light had occurred, an exchange of energy had happened between Ella and Galvetron. She had to smile though, she would never thought it possible that the Decepticon had any good in him and that Ella would be able to draw it into herself.

What Ella had done was pull out what represented his good side and left the dark side behind, therefore splitting them into two selves.

This would certainly be an interesting conversation with the others.

There sitting unconscious on his side next to Ella was a silver skinned Bioroid who looked vaguely familiar. Ella was on her knees like she had just vomited and looked up and leaned back when she finally noticed Lilith.

'_I figured you would come here.'_ She said. _'This was the same room Adam was birthed in.' _Lilith had taken the courtesy of creating a black cloth and wrapped the unconscious male up in it before she picked him up along with Ella.

"So how do you think the others will take the news of my power pulling all that good out of him and then doing this." Ella said referring to the unconscious form Lilith held in her other arm like a snoozing infant. "It was unexpected. But what else could I do. I sensed two minds within him and thought this was the best solution pulling the other mind out and using my powers to create a Bioroid body for him while leaving the mecha body for the mind I left behind."

'_Hush.'_ She commented as she walked out of the room with both of them, _'You can explain this to the others when we go back to them.'_

*


	42. Chapter 42 Holiday Break

*Holiday Break*

*

Decellion had to leave many things behind when she had teleported out of the temple, including her Necromancers.

The ones that were left behind, she did not feel any sentiment in leaving them, there was no chance of recovering them if a Cybredeon Queen had gotten hold of them. That and they could always be replaced. So long as the Cybredeon species existed she could always get more. Finding the stock to do so would have been the hard part, but now that she could teleport into and out of any area to get the ones she wanted for her new soldiers, it wouldn't be a problem.

When she had first dropped off Galvetron to his ship, she had quickly left to return to the Dominion to avoid the anger that Galvetron's soldiers had over their Commander's condition. They blamed her for it seeing as how she was with him last, that and Galvetron had made sure they didn't trust her at all. Not that she cared what they thought anyhow.

The Dominion Council wasn't too pleased about her return either, but they were more interested in her weapons platform design.

Their first thought was to use it against the Alliance for the purpose of territorial domination and as a weapon of war.

They also thought to use it against Decellion if they could. They had moved on from having her as their leader a long time ago after she had been imprisoned and they no longer wanted her around. At least that was the sentiment of the Council members, power hungry dictators that they were.

They had thought it was unfortunate that she had been released from her prison and wished she had stayed there, but for now they would use her as she was using them, till neither side was no longer useful to the other.

They would have stolen the design but she gave it freely, even helping them to encode the nano construction program that would allow them to build the platform amongst the construction areas that they had already finished.

One thing she ensured she did was to have her Talisman as the only activation device, as well as having the Matrices as the only power source. She would not trust them to leave them with the weapons platform and not use it ahead of her plan, so she made sure she had it her way. And when she showed them her finished design, they found no faults. They thought they could double cross her and start using the device as soon as construction was complete. They figured she would deceive them but would not know until the nano construction was complete that she had.

For now she would let them keep the weapons platform and would return once she had all twelve of the Matrices, keeping the ones she had, in a safe location back at the Citadel on Charr. She would only return to the Dominion's battle planet to check on the nano program when she was sure it was finished and only for the purpose of ensuring everything worked.

When she arrived back at Charr, she had taken some time to ensure the Scientists understood what she was trying to impart to them. She had given them the full instruction on how to construct new Destron mecha soldiers.

While she was with the Dominion Council she finally decided not to bother anymore with the Cybredeon, and went with making new mecha soldiers instead. Fortunately the Dominion, who although were none too pleased about her loss of the first lot of Destron soldiers they had given her, still gave her supplies to construct new ones in exchange for the weapons platform.

She left them to it and returned to Galvetron. When she had left him and his Decepticons on his ship, it had been a week before she had gotten back to them, and in that time they had all returned to Charr to recuperate. This was where she was now, in the Citadel, making her way up to the control room to report on the progress of the new soldiers.

Galvetron had taken almost the whole week to recover, being watched over the whole time by Scrapper who closely observed and recorded on his condition.

When he had awoken and discovered what had gone on, was quite livid that she had gotten to the power before he did, and all he wanted to do was wrap his hands around her neck and watch as she squirmed till her energon was cut off and she went into permanent status.

First he had to address the issue of what he felt was missing from himself. He knew he wasn't quite himself right now and that there was a part missing, something that femme in the white and gold mecha body had taken from him, but at the same time he now felt whole, on a darker level than before. He had gone over his systems again and again to check what was still there. He felt no joy or happiness; only the unadulterated darkness now within himself and it felt him in return. It made him think that the old part of him that still clung to what was once Megatron was what had been holding him back all this time. In a way he felt relieved that that part of himself, that voice he could always hear in his head holding him back at times previously was gone and all that was left now, was what Unicron had remade him into, Galvetron.

His thoughts however were interrupted when Decellion waltzed into his quarters without announcing herself.

He didn't even have to turn to face her, he knew it was her, he could feel her, every little dark inch of her. He didn't know how or why, he just did. _'It must be a result of what happened.'_ He presumably thought.

"I would have thought you would be long gone by now Decellion after getting what you wanted." He stated.

"I just thought I would drop back in and tell you they accepted the plans I gave them and are taking care of its construction right now." She grins. "But they won't be able to use it without all of the Matrices." And her key, which she neglected to mention to him.

He turns to face her. He knew she was not being completely upfront. "Did you forget to mention something else?" He asks curiously. It seemed he could almost sense her thoughts now. He remembered back to when she had first shot him with that dark energy when they had first met and how alive it made him feel. Things had been very clear to him then, and were just as clear now.

"No." She replied flatly without even a hint of deception.

He could not do much more than that right now, he would have to accept her actions despite the fact he questioned them as usual, knowing she was lying. Eventually he would discover more about this new dark power he had and take what he wanted from her mind.

He knew she was hiding something and would still seek to use him to accomplish whatever plan or goal she had in mind. Whatever those ultimate plans were, he would keep an optic or two out and seize the power for himself when the time was right.

*

Elsewhere in Europe, there was a gathering of people. Namely the League of Humanity.

They had been against any kind of interaction with the ones they called abominations. They were referring to both the transformers and also the visiting alien delegates from the Alliance, as well as anyone else on the planet they deemed non human.

These people were extreme xenophobes and made their money and strength preying on the racist and fearful behaviour of others. This is where they got all their support from. The ones who ran the organisation were all people of high rank and prestige and lived all over the world.

They were all very pro-human types as well who believed wholeheartedly in the perfection of humanity, and abhorred any type of mechanoid or alien life forms, or any other life form that was not human, including humans that possessed psychic abilities or cybernetic parts, as in their view, even these humans were beneath them and deserved to perish.

In this undisclosed location they had their meeting. Those that could not attend were present via the internet video connection.

They were there discussing the failure of one of their members in New York over a month ago. They were disgusted that this member, who freely committed suicide in the name of the League's agenda, had failed because all that were present at the summit had not perished. Only a small handful had died and were injured.

Then there was the televised event that made them all gasp. The video footage of Adam Drake, seemingly dying, and then coming back to life. As well as his later revelations of a school in Port Angeles for piloting mecha. They all thought of him now as an abomination as his true nature had been revealed and it disgusted them.

"This abomination of humanity must be disposed of." Said one leader with absolute disgust.

"But how are we going to accomplish that now after seeing what he can do. We've suspected for a long time that he may be associated with those abhorrent cyborgs or genetically enhanced humans we've heard about; this event only proves he is one of them. His entire existence is a threat to the domination of our order, I will admit and also to the future of the human race. But the question still remains that he will not be easy to kill." States another.

These leaders of the League continue to talk for sometime about the disposal of Adam Drake and others on the planet like him.

"Perhaps if we can discover more of them and get them all into one place like the Summit and then execute some kind of disaster that would eradicate them in one go."

"It wouldn't take care of all of them but it would be a start." Said another.

"I agree." Many concurred and they began their discussion for further plans.

*

In Port Angeles, an undercover military team had arrived to investigate some business that the US Government wanted to take care of. They had been sanctioned to investigate any and all links that Adam Drake had, in light of what had happened at the Summit some time ago.

They had been following his actions since he left Washington and were reporting everything he did, who he had contact with, where he went but most of all, any connections that would lead to any secret projects he may be connected to, any secrets he had been keeping from the US Government that they wanted to know about.

Adam knew that he was being watched, which was one reason why he had let go of Ella's escorts when he had come back to Port Angeles, to protect Dragon valley base, and had communicated his plans through other means that weren't technological so it couldn't be traced.

And it wasn't just the military that was watching him, it was many groups. As what had happened at the Summit had freaked a lot of people out. He just went on with business as usual. Many forgot about what happened and let it go, thinking it was just something that was sensationalised by the media.

They instead focused on the good he was doing considering the nature of society these days.

But not all did that, there were those that focused on the bad and their fears which had led to the constant stream of protestors at his door. Still, it would be a bane to the military who were watching him as it would interfere with them trying to get into the building, and at this he smiled.

*

At Dragon Valley base, all things were rather quiet now after a week of relative rest. Most everyone was either working to help with repairs or had left when Ella told them to take time off and come back when needed.

The Autobots had once again taken possession of their old ship the Ark. Ella's construction plan had involved repairing it to its former glory as well as upgrade it with her designs using nano technology. She had accomplished this by using the molecular structure of the surrounding rock that was imprisoning the ship.

Both Prowl and Armstrong's teams were able to follow Ella's instruction and able to break the ship free from the old volcano it had once been encased in, bringing it down to Dragon valley to help out with the battle there.

But the ship had since been returned to Autobot City upon Ultra Magnus' request, seeing as how it was originally Autobot property.

Ella had also sent a team out to help the Alliance deal with Decellion, as well as the fact that Optimus had returned to Cybertron to deal with matters of his own, leaving Ultra Magnus in charge of the Earth bases and patrols. And he had sent the ones who had recently fought out on leave to rest.

Lilith had returned her and their new patient back to the base after it all happened and escorted the Autobots and others along also. She retreated back to her temple to take care of her own business when she was done and no one had heard from her or the Cybredeon since then.

There were also some mecha scientists working on the Dominion ship that was now occupying most of the flight bay. They had managed to shift its hulking form into a side hangar for study. It was Ella's decision to take it apart in case Decellion or any Dominion came back for it, to further protect the base from any more invasions.

She had also gotten someone to improve the security systems for the same reasons.

She was pretty much alone on the base today. Almost everyone was otherwise occupied and she was enjoying the quiet.

She pondered over the reports she had sent to the Alliance Council about what had happened in the caves. They had again requested the assistance of Bonecrusher and her group to help deal with the problem and once they were all 100% again, Ella had let them go. The Alliance had sent her an assurance, despite her feelings to the contrary, that they would handle any problems with Decellion and the Decepticons in their part of space and they appreciated the help she had rendered. But she knew that it was only a matter of time before she would have to rally her team to go and take the fight to them, right now she was just letting them rest.

In the meantime, she was being dragged into the medical bay almost daily. Since her incident in the temple she was getting headaches that were affecting her almost continuously and so Heartia had forced her to stay under her watch as much as possible.

It gave Ella the chance to check in on their new resident. And it also gave Heartia the chance to give Ella a full medical check up, considering the base caretaker wasn't the easiest person in the world to get into her medical bay.

Ella had been feeling worn out lately due to all the action and felt it was best to let Heartia have her way. She knew her power core was starting to wind down and many of her abilities did not work like they used to and Heartia would be the best one to monitor them.

From what Ella knew of her species, normal Bioroids weren't meant to live to her age, but she wasn't the only one, a few had before her, her mother for one, as well as Heartia herself, who was more than twice Ella's age and still going strong.

Every cycle, as they call it, the equivalent of one million Earth years, they undergo a severe physical change. Their entire body shifts and reformats itself and changes according to the knowledge and experiences they've accumulated over the past cycle. Their bodies have a tendency to allow the power core to power down to conserve energy in order to do the shift. Her body had been collecting the energy it needed for quite some time now for the process and she knew it was edging closer, the problem was that there was no guarantee she would survive the process, not many did. Each time she went through it, she always wondered if she was going to pass on to the next level or not, and she hoped that when the time did come that it would happen here on this base, as the expulsion of energy that this process creates could power a place like Cybertron for well over ten million years or so.

She turned her attention to one of the other beds where the male Bioroid was resting comfortably. The resident had been awake on and off several times over the last few days and was not showing any signs of being up on a constant basis just yet.

Ella still couldn't shake her familiarity of his appearance. He looked just like how she thought Megatron would look if he were somewhat human, but he carried a more Deltronian appearance, as most Bioroids there were silver skinned.

Perhaps a few more days rest would help him. It was already close to Christmas, maybe he would join them in the land of the living before then to help them celebrate.

*

Elsewhere.

Teams were on patrol in several places around Europe. They were looking for certain individuals. Destrons.

But these alien agents had learned to disguise themselves very well despite their short time on Earth, possibly using the same disguises that Transformers with pretender shells have.

The thing that was dangerous about them was that they were machines programmed for war and only war, and that they were a threat to the general safety of the humans that were close by them. This was a reason why the Spyhunters team was in a rush to find them and capture as many as they could and doing so without the intervention of any military groups unless it was absolutely necessary.

They used all the resources at their disposal to try and do so before any harm would come to any humans.

*

In Port Angeles it was December and many were enjoying themselves, being given some time off by their respective leaders for a job well done recently.  
Optimus Prime had called in some of his other teams to help the Spyhunters in Europe before he had left for Cybertron and Ella had sent along some agents also, to assist with the search for the Destrons still hiding out there.

Ella however had to get her team, the Roughnecks, to settle down as they wanted to after Decellion and get the Matrices back. It had taken her some time to convince them that the Alliance would handle it for now and that they deserved some time off to rest and relax before Christmas came. She assured them they would deal with it shortly.

Jazz and Sound Track had themselves and various others in town doing just that, resting and relaxing. They had utilised their Biomodes and were enjoying themselves, spread out all over the local ice skating rink at the park near the main shopping centre.

The Autobots amongst them had engaged their relatively new Biomodes and were having fun making use of them. The twins of course being admired by many onlookers, Sunstreaker of course soaking up all the attention he was getting. While Sideswipe was sulking, accusing his brother of being selfish and not sharing.

One group, consisting of Joyride, Sound Track and Sunstar were on the ice rink in their human Biomodes while Jazz, Bumblebee, Hound and Bluestreak were watching the three femmes from a side bench in their new human forms.

"You know it's hard to believe that they aren't really human at all. If I didn't know that they were just like us, I'd have just said they were ordinary humans." Observed Bumblebee.

Jazz smiles and replies, "Yeah I'd have ta agree with ya there li'l buddy!"

Hound just sat back quietly observing everyone.

Bluestreak having given up trying to join the femmes in ice skating, sat next to him, chatting her audios off about something.

Hound just let her go on talking while he watched their friends and the other humans around the place.

Burnout had turned up with Vanguard, Tempest and Freestyle and joined them on the other benches.

The Autobot twins had decided they'd had enough attention and found their own spot nearby, but unfortunately, their entourage of female humans continued to follow them. And now they had to come up with an idea to be rid of them now that the crowd was irritating them. They of course resorted to their trademark foul language that drove the majority of them off. Some did linger for a time but quickly left also.

All were in their Biomodes; none of the real humans nearby were none the wiser about their real identities, bar one group. Some of their other human friends turned up to join them; they were hanging around enjoying themselves also.

Desonia had espied two of her team; Ranger and Steelwind, in their Biomodes, having a snowball fight some distance away with their human friends from the local school. She sat down at the bench and rested with the other Autobots a moment. "So which one o'y'all is comin' out for a slahde?"

Jazz mused, "We're havin' too much fun watchin' Blue' have a go!" He points at Bluestreak, who had since been asked back onto the ice by Casey and wasn't having a good time of being able to stay on her feet, falling over every few metres and occasionally dragging Casey down with her.

Desonia heard Sunstreaker laughing behind her and making snide remarks about Bluestreak's ice skating skills. "Well y'all, at least she's havin' a go. But if y'think y'so good then why don' y'all give it a try?" She asks.

Sunstreaker stops laughing when he realises he's been issued with a challenge. "Fine I will do just that." He replied flatly, not liking being made to look like he couldn't do something. Plus he couldn't resist a challenge.

He'd never been ice skating at all but he kept his composure. Sunstar volunteered to help him get the right size boots and to put them on and then he got himself out onto the ice with no problems, or so he thought. He fell down almost straight away, much to the chagrin of most of the others watching who laughed their afts off at him and his clumsiness.

"Y'all were sayin' Sunstreaker?" Said Desonia who had gotten up from the bench again, going onto the ice and skated past him nimbly.

Sunstar had come back onto the ice and sidled up to Sunstreaker, helped him back onto his feet and stayed near him in case he fell down again, but Sunstreaker had gotten the hang of it quite quickly, and was even so bold as to try and keep up with Sunstar, who was quite the professional skater it seemed. While she inevitably had more skills and talent, he still tried to keep with her even when she was doing her fancy tricks.

She was quite happy to show him how she did it all, and smiled when he was able to pick it up almost immediately copying her move for move.

She applauded him, "Perhaps you would like to join me in a tandem skate?"

He replied eagerly. "Maybe." This wasn't something he would take up as an occupation, as he much rather preferred his art. Any post war occupation was impossible anyhow so long as their war with the Decepticons was going on. He would not be able to return to any full time leisure pursuits or business ventures until that was well and truly over, which he doubted would happen any time soon.

Elsewhere Vanessa had just been pummelled with a snowball by one of the young humans, namely Laura.

Laura grinned playfully at a surprised Vanessa. Laura ducked very quickly when Vanessa returned a volley of her own snowball ammunition. This in turn hit Ryan who was next to her. He then fired some snowballs, whereas Vanessa ducked and it hit Jazz and Bumblebee who were sitting on the bench watching the skating.

Freefall and Starscream were quietly talking about some science subjects between themselves when Starscream copped a snowball to the head, knocking him off the bench. Freefall was trying her best to remain straight faced.

"Hey!" He yelled exasperated. "What in the pits do you think you're doing!" he raved. A fair few of them were laughing their heads off and commending the one who had landed the shot.

"Relex comrade Starscream." Chided his dark haired female companion. "You go pley, go pummel few vith snowbells too." She had finally given and was now laughing out loud in response to Starscream being hit with a snowball.

"That kind of behaviour is unbecoming of a warrior of my stature." He replied sulking with his arms crossed.

"Es you vish." She replied and then started up the conversation about physics again.

Vanessa, Jazz, Bumblebee, Sideswipe, Burnout, and Freestyle were holed up on one side of the pond behind a snow bank for cover. While Ryan, Laura, Christine, Steel', Vanessa's daughter Krysta and Ranger were behind another snow bank, also taking cover.

Casey had stopped to watch, clutching her clumsy skating partner Bluestreak. Desonia had stopped not far off.

Casey asks, "Hey, y'be t'inkin' we be getting' involved?"

Desonia just smiles and comments, "Sure, whah not!" She slides over to bench, replaces her shoes and joins in on Jazz's side.

Casey wasn't able to do the same as Bluestreak had dragged her down onto the ice again. She turns to her and says, "I be t'inkin' dat it be enough skatin' for ya t'day." And she laughs, while Bluestreak joins in. They fall all over each other trying to get up again however and Hound is amusing himself from the bench with their antics.

Not too far away Sideswipe had decided to try and score a shot with a snowball at his twin but hit Sunstar instead. She wasn't too impressed and does what Desonia did, changes her footwear. She joins Laura's side and pummels Sideswipe with every snowball she throws at him.

Sunstreaker, who had joined Hound at the bench, fell over himself laughing trying to change his shoes, until Sideswipe does get him mid shoe change, falling off the bench again in the process. Having his twin laugh at him gave him an incentive to rush and join the snowball fight.

He promptly fixes his shoes and joins Laura's side quickly returning a volley of snowballs as payback against his brother.

Kup and Hot Rod had turned up in their vehicle modes as they were close by and had just finished their patrol. They had sent their reports back to base instead of going back personally as they had detected their comrades close by.

They see what is going on close by however. Hot Rod was just about to transform and join in on the fun when Kup calls him back.

"Hold it lad, you go in there right now and you'll get in the middle of their fight." He cautioned.

Hot Rod engages his scanners and looks both groups over seeing the snowball fight. "Big deal, it's just snow." He transforms and wanders over to the group and promptly gets pummelled from both sides for walking into their throwing range.

"Well I did warn him." He laughed at the absurdity of it all while he transformed and went to help Hot Rod up out of the snow.

Not long after he is helped up, Hot Rod is hit again, this time by Jazz. "Hey, no fair, Jazz, ya gave me no warning!"

"That's the point Hot Rod!" He replies back, "Expect the unexpected!"

Hot Rod tries his luck at making a snowball and throws it at Jazz, but misses and hits Sound Track full on. She digs herself out and pops her head up from under the pile of snow she had been under and cocks her brow at him from above her visor.

"Sorry!" Said Hot Rod laughing, "I was aiming for Jazz, honest!" Jazz was close by laughing his head off at Desonia covered in snow.

She mutters quietly, "This means war ya'll." And aims a snowball at him and hits her target.

"Ok y'all Hot Rod an' Jazz are it!" She yells out.

"Say what!" Says a surprised Hot Rod as he's pummelled by snowballs from everyone.

Jazz mutters, "Oh slag!" And runs for cover just as a volley of snowballs gets aimed at him too. He gets behind cover just in time to be missed by many attacks.

Hot Rod falls down on his aft section into the snow laughing. Everyone else joins in the laughter.

Jazz pops his head up from behind his covers and taunts, "Nyah nyah ya missed me!" And gets clobbered full on in the face by a snowball from someone. "Ouch. If I'd known it was gonna hurt that much I wouldna joined in." He laughed, "Ok I give up!"

But Desonia wasn't satisfied, she continued her volley, which started a one on one snowball war between them and had them chasing each other all over the park trying to hit each other with snowballs.

Hound and Kup, who had been watching from close by, couldn't help but laugh at the fun either. So far both of them had escaped notice and so had been free of any hits from the snowballs. While no one was game to hit Kup, it wasn't long before Hound too became a part of the action, and soon he was chasing around others trying to hit a target unfortunate enough to reveal themselves to him, just like the others.

It wasn't long before dusk started to come around and it got dark. Then the city lights came on. By then they were all a little worn out from all the running around and throwing snowballs and so sat and rested, enjoying the night air.

Joyride thought it time to add her contribution to the night and so decided to show off using her unique abilities to create some energy plasmoid projectiles aimed at the sky.

Many commented that it was a nice finish to a fun day, watching fireworks over the Port Angeles skyline.

Only some of them knew she could generate plasma energy spheres in her Biomode, which results in fireworks displays when she releases them into the air. So they all spent the better part of a few hours watching Joyride put on a display. The other humans close by were also enjoying the show, thinking it was some holiday festivity.

It wasn't long before their Autobot friends had to return home. They said their goodbyes, and one by one returned to their robotic forms or doubled up with the others as passengers for the long drive back to Autobot City.

While the Autobots said their goodbyes and started to leave to return to their base muttering amongst themselves about the fun they'd had. Sound Track, their human friends and the others stayed at the park for the peace and quiet.

*


	43. Chapter 43 Combat and Training

*Combat And Training*

*

Off in the Alliance sectors, the border wars were becoming steadily worse. The combat groups of their fighting forces had been stretched to breaking point, with all this constant fighting going on, or so it seemed.

The Dominion had their armada everywhere where they could spare their own soldiers. No one place along the outer edges of the Alliance facing the Dominion territories were safe right now. Just as soon as one Alliance combat group would go to one place to deal with another intrusion, another Dominion group would show up right where they had just left to continue their fight.

What the Dominion wanted was to have this act as a diversionary tactic, not only to throw the Alliance off balance and to stress and weaken their forces, but also to distract them from their plan.

What they had planned was a complete reformatting of their entire home planet Omicron. At least this was their home planet after their last one, Omega, was seemingly destroyed in a war with the Alliance. About 30 million Earth years ago, it was sucked into a black hole, disappearing the same time that Decellion was imprisoned in another place hole elsewhere.

And with the reformatting of the battle planet, there was also the recent addition of the weapons platform installed by Decellion. She had told the Dominion council that she'd stolen the plans from the Alliance.

The council of course did not believe her, then again they didn't believe anything anyone really told them, often not even when they saw it with their optics. They took the plans only because of the end result of possessing such a weapon would give them.

They had already gone through her plans with a fine toothed comb before they installed the nano construction program into the battle planets system. Decellion however had hidden her activation protocols too well and they didn't see it until the weapons system had finished its construction and they could not activate it.

It frustrated them that it couldn't be used right now, but they surmised that Decellion had the key with which to activate it and that she would return to them with that key, along with the Power Matrices when she had all 12. It was their opportunity to take it all from her, by force if necessary, when she was back in their company again. And they were waiting on that.

They had their own plans for the new weapon.

With the weapon active and under their control, they could take over the Alliance, territory which the Dominion believed to be rightfully theirs. The weapon would utilise all 12 of the Matrice devices as a destructive power source, not as a spiritual reticence as they were originally intended. This was one reason the Alliance was trying to protect the Power Matrices from the Dominion.

Since the days of the first civil wars between the ancient Devillion and Angellion people, the original ancestors of both the Alliance and the Dominion, the Matrices have been used as a constructive force rather than a destructive one. At several points during the civil wars on both sides there have been squabbles over the possession of these ancient orbs. But due to the fact they have mainly been in the possession of and hidden by the Alliance for most of the time since the Matrices' discovery, the power and strength has gone to the Alliance.

Decellion thought differently, finding a very easy way to get hold of the Matrices when she was free all that time ago, but the Alliance got lucky. They wrestled them back from her, at great cost to their own forces and imprisoned her before any of them could be used destructively against the citizens of the Alliance.

The Dominion had known about what she did then, but over time thought it to be a myth because it was so long ago. One of their own having possession of all 12 of the devices? It was unheard of as the Alliance had had them too well protected since then, until now anyhow.

They had only begun to come together again as a race under their own control after Decellion's last incarceration, and it had taken them this long to get a plan together to completely confront the Alliance. To have their entire planet rebuilt into a movable battle fortress to use against the Alliance. It had just been a coincidence that Decellion had turned up when she did, as they could use her as a pawn in their own plans of domination, not caring really what she used to mean to their race.

And with Decellion now almost having gathered all 12 of the Matrices, the Dominion council were feeling content that their plans would come to fruition soon.

While they thought that the Alliance wasn't aware of their diversionary tactics, they were in fact very aware of it. They intended to have the Alliance kept at bay till the construction of their battle planet was complete. But the Alliance had spies checking on its progress constantly. While they couldn't get any of their main forces anywhere near Omicron, they made sure their undercover agents did some sabotage work for them instead.

The Dominion thought they had been keeping the Alliance soldiers so busy with endless and needless distractions, that they would complete the battle planet's construction before they even knew about it. At present, the reconstruction was over 90% complete. But Alliance was well aware of their current progress point and were not as busy taking care of the Dominion along their borders as they would have their enemy believe them to be.

They had sent some of their own spies in previously to monitor the planet and send back information. But this was before the construction. The spies had opted to stay due to their positions of secrecy still being somewhat secure, and they continued to report back what and when they could on the Dominions activities back to the Alliance council, as well as follow their other orders.

The Dominion had been doing the same to them for a long time also, spying on them and reporting back to their own council. While the Dominion figured they would have Alliance spies in their midst, they had yet to find them as they were too well hidden right now.

*

Elsewhere within the Alliance, on a battleground near the edges of the Delta system.

This system was one of several star systems that was once near to the Dominion home world of Omega a long time ago.

But it was still far enough away from the border edges of the Alliance for the denizens of this system to feel comfortable and safe away from their power hungry mecha neighbours of the Dominion.

The main fight was taking place on a barren planet in a system between Delta and Omicron, the Dominion's current home system. The fight was on an unused part of a planet not inhabited by the Alliance. The battle here had now been going on for some time now.

The Alliance fighters that were here, were trying to defend the peace. They were a team of an elite air combat unit, and the odds were against them. That was until some old friends had shown up from Earth, more reinforcements given at a time when they were needed very much.

The team leader of this air combat unit known as the Sky Riders was called General Aeris Bourne, better known to her team mates as Airbourne, one of the best pilots the Alliance had and also one of the very few female Generals the Alliance armada had.

Another team of military mechanoids, called the Waveriders were also present. They were a team assigned to the Theta system of planets but had been called in to assist with this current battle due to Theta being very close to the centre of the Alliance and this system being near the outer rims and needed more help than Theta did at present.

It was the same with the Sky Riders, they were usually assigned to the Alpha planetary system, but were better utilised here.

Airbourne was somewhat relieved when Bonecrusher and her heavy combat unit showed up to help as the reinforcements sent by the Council. She had received word previously that due to the up scaled fighting from the Dominion, another team would be sent to assist. She did not think it would be the Dinosaurers, but she was grateful nonetheless.

Bonecrusher had also brought along from Earth another team of Dinosaur mechanoids that Airbourne was unfamiliar with. They were known as the Dinobots.

In the short time that Bonecrusher had worked with them, a slight tryst between both teams had formed. Neither knew the other and didn't trust the other team yet, but both sides realised co-operation would be beneficiary. In terms of Bonecrusher and her lot generally being dragged off to do heavy combat work more often than not, Grimlock and his team could join in on the dangerous fun if it was worthwhile to them, as spending time with the Autobots could often bore Grimlock and his team.

Bonecrusher had an idea given to her by her Brachiosaurus medic, Earthquake. She thought it was more than just the combat the Dinobots sought. She suspected on some level that the tryst had formed due to the fact she and a few of her team mates were female mecha and that they had Dinosaur alt modes.

The team of heavy combat Dinosaur units from Earth, Autobot soldiers led by their team leader known as Grimlock, also included four others, Slag, Sludge, Swoop and Snarl. All were male. And compared to Bonecrushers team, that was half and half in terms of gender, she gave Earthquake's intuition some praise. Perhaps they were slightly taken by either herself or her team's female members.

But it was a thought for another time, as right now; battle was all that was important.

All of their teams and individual soldiers were strewn out all over the rocky outcrops of one particular uninhabited planet and also throughout the asteroid belt around the planet out in space.

Airbourne and her team had managed to drive off some of the Dominion soldiers here. But they found that there was far too many for them to stay their ground and were beginning to loose it.

That had been until Bonecrusher and the rest showed up at this point in time.

However, for Airbourne and other battle groups of the Alliance, the fighting had been going on for almost a month now, on and off. And not just on this planet and its surrounding areas, but also on many others.

Airbourne and some of the other team leaders had had an idea to try and coral some of the Dominion fighters in order to eliminate or capture their enemy. But this strategy wasn't working too well for them right now, which was one reason the Alliance council had sent them the Dinosaurers.

The addition of their team to the fighting force on this front had definitely evened out the odds.

Airbourne had to wonder though, where her old friends, a team that she was once a member of, The Roughnecks, were and why they were not taking part. She thought that perhaps Ella was saving their participation for a time that was needed.

*

In Dragon Valley, the Roughnecks team were in training.

Ella had given them the Christmas and New Years holidays off in order to rest and relax, and when they had come back she had gotten them into some hard work of preparative combat training.

She had left control of the training to Sound Track while she helped Heartia attend to the recuperation of their latest guest, as well as checking up on other items of interest.

She had recently checked in with the Spyhunters team leader Heatwave and enquired about their particular mission.

The response that she had gotten back was that their tech officer had created a core signature location device that had allowed them to track the Destron mecha units easier and faster, after their first attempts at tracking them down had proven exhausting. Now with the device, over 75% of the rogue aliens had been captured and incarcerated before any serious damage or injury had been done to property or people. But the team would continue to do their mission until it was complete and all the alien mecha were taken care of.

Elle thought at least it would keep Heatwave and his team occupied, well, Heatwave at least. She was always being constantly bothered by him to let him back onto her main team for more combat opportunities, as well as to be close to Sound Track again.

Not only was it inconvenient now due to her team being all female, but she had separated Heatwave and Sound Track for a reason and given them both leadership positions to intentionally keep them apart. It had been due to a major disagreement between them over the welfare of the Droidian offspring, after the incident where Midnight had tried to terminate her twin, Sunstar, at the time.

Heatwave had always favoured Midnight, but wanted the family to stay together, but that couldn't happen, and so the two mecha were separated, Heatwave was given Midnight, and Sound track took Sunstar. Heatwave still hadn't let go of the past yet, but Sound Track had. She had been somewhat colder emotionally since then but Ella could see some things were starting to change.

Before she would head off to meet up with Heartia, she was in the control room with some of the civilians who had come back after the fight was done and had helped begin reconstruction of the base and was going over some general duties for the day.

While the nano mechanical healing process of the base computers repair system only took care of the structure, a cleaning and repair job was still needed for anything else and that's what most of the civilian staff did, leaving the combat and training to the teams here.

She quickly left after going over the morning's duty rosters and had a quick look see as to who was where and what they were doing, and then turned over control of the deck to someone else and left for her other rendezvous.

Heartia had over the last few weeks, started to walk with their new resident around the base. She had nicknamed him Morgan, as he had reminded her of an old enemy that both she and Ella had once had a very long time ago when they were at war with Decellion and her Dominion army the first time around, even though they both knew he was perhaps someone else's old enemy.

Ella ran into both of them before she even reached the medical bay. The other two having started their walk early today.

"Good morning Morgan." Greeted Ella as she approached both of them. Heartia and Ella had discussed between themselves previously that they would not tell the others about what they'd discovered about him just yet. But they both knew some suspected who and what he was. Even Morgan himself suspected who he was, but at present was refraining from being that person for his own reasons.

He grunted and then said dryly, "Good morning." Morgan had also become accustomed to having a steely visage and a reticent temperament in dealing with others. He did not feel that it was necessary to be pleasant to anyone once he had started to remember things. But was appreciative of the daily walks around the base even if he had to put up with pleasantries of greetings and such and the company of others whom he neither knew nor wanted to know.

He sighed knowing that Ella would probably try and engage him in conversation that he was loathe to participate in. Ella however picked up on his thoughts and asked, "Well?"

"Well what?" He replied haughtily. "If you're talking about the fact you want me to engage in some kind of conversation then you are sorely mistaken. I am not in the mood for any kind of pleasantries this morning."

Ella raised a brow and then turned to Heartia, "So I take it he got out of the wrong side of his bed this morning?" She said sarcastically.

Heartia got the joke and replied, "Well it's probably due to the fact he's remembering more about who he is and the fact that he's stuck for the moment in a humanoid body is what is ticking him off."

Morgan ignored them and had, in the meantime had wandered off to look at some of the Roughnecks training in the nearby recreation room.

Heartia and Ella stood by the door to watch him interact with the teams that were in the rec room training. The Roughnecks were closest to him, while at the other end of the room, the Storm Wings were being run through some hand to hand combat drills by their new full time group leader Nightfall, as Ella had returned Freefall to the rosters of the Roughnecks team.

He was for the moment intently watching the combat between Steelwind and Burnout. While Steelwind was still new to the group she wasn't new to combat and was similar in strength to Burnout even if she was that much taller in their humanoid Biomodes. They were just running her through her paces to see what she had and how she would be able to interact with her new team-mates.

They were training between themselves when Morgan wandered onto the edge of their training circle. He neither flinched nor moved when Steel' was thrown right at his feet with her head resting right on top of his toes.

She looked up at him from the floor and said, "You know, it ain't a good idea mate to walk into someone else's fight, especially when it's me an' her." She pointed to another female, Rusty, in front of her.

Rusty had casually walked up and tried unsuccessfully to grab the grey haired female by the ankle and drag her off. Steelwind was continuously kicking off any attempt made by Rusty to move her from where she was, and eventually she landed a strong enough blow to knock the red head off her feet and allow her to get up onto hers.

There were a few laughs from the surrounding crowd as they guffawed at Rusty for having been knocked out of the training circle, and for being ousted by their new member.

Steel' had yet to show off most of her combat skills to the group as she had previously been non combat personnel, but it was beginning to show that she had retained all her memories of martial arts training from when she was originally human, getting the better of Rhiannon as a result.

"Ok Rusty you're outside the circle. You're out and 'Slide you are in." Vanessa commented. She was directing the training circle for the moment as Sound Track was quietly meditating elsewhere in the room along with Freefall close by.

Landslide wandered into the circle blithely feeling very confident about her own combat skills. She however got impatient with Steelwind as the femme had found someone to talk to.

Steelwind had started talking to Morgan, trying in vain to get a response out of him when Vanessa called.

"Sometime today would be great Winona?" She Bellowed.

Steel' turned to Vanessa and yelled, "Ok I'm coming."

Morgan who had sighed in response to her leaving, being grateful for the silence.

Steelwind turned her attention back to the others and stepped into the circle for the next match.

Vanessa noticed Morgan's response and asked, "Perhaps you would like to join us?"

This got Morgan's attention. Even though he didn't really care, he was curious to see how he would fare in a fight as he had not yet had a chance to test out his combat skills with anyone. He looked at Vanessa when she addressed him. But she had turned to look at Ella and Heartia to check if it was ok to let him join in.

Heartia gave her a nod. Ella questioned her reasoning, and Heartia replied quietly so the others didn't hear, "It's fine. It's time he had an opportunity to test his fighting skills anyway, to see exactly what he remembers." Ella agreed with her on that point. Vanessa was about to invite him into the circle and assign him a training partner when Heartia also added, "Don't go easy on him Vanessa."

Morgan heard the comment and couldn't help but feel amused, _'This should be interesting.'_ He thought to himself.

"Fine, let's make this interesting then!" Vanessa decided. "Tempest, grab a weapon, any kind, gun preferably." Tempest squealed in joy as it had been a fair while since she was allowed to bring a gun to a training match. She brought two of her plasma handguns out of subspace and checked that they were both in working order before stepping into the circle to wait. "Burnout, you take care of hand to hand." Rusty cracked her knuckles and chuckled at Morgan in response then stepped into the circle herself. "Sunstar, you do the same."

A quiet, "As you wish." Came from the white femme as she joined them inside the circle.

"And Steel?" Vanessa added, "You and I get the blades."

The large grey femme grabbed herself a big, heavy broadsword from the wall and passed along another sword to Morgan who deftly grabbed it and continued to wait.

Vanessa took out two of her Samurai swords from subspace and moved to join the other four who were now in place inside the training circle.

Vanessa barked, "Keep in close and stay on him. If you get knocked out of the circle, stay out. Leave the finish to the rest of us." There was a collaborative murmur from the other females before Vanessa shouted, "Begin."

*

On Charr.

Decellion and Galvetron had been busier than usual.

On their most recent trips to find the last of the Power Matrices, it had surprised them that they'd had no interference from any Alliance soldiers, nor any of Ella's group or anyone else for that matter and Galvetron wondered why.

.They had found the last Matrice finally and at the present moment, Galvetron was thinking of all the different ways he could kill Decellion right now and take the Matrices for himself.

He shook off the thought as soon as it had entered his mind as he would need her for something else. He wasn't keeping her alive now out of any affection for the femme, as he had realised not so long ago, that it was the darkness in him, connecting to her own innate dark nature and power, causing the attraction, not from any affection of his part, not any more at least.

He had been over it again and again in his mind over what he would do when he had the 12 items in his possession, but something was still holding him back. While part of his mind was thrilled at the prospect of trying to kill the femme who would undoubtedly try and tear him limb from limb, he had still yet to make a move on her to take what he wanted.

He supposed that the now growing dark power within him wanted the battle planet. He knew what it was the Dominion were doing with it. It was Shockwave who had reported this information to him, fulfilling his role an as undercover spy for Galvetron by feeding him all the information that could be gathered while he was there.

He also knew that the battle planet now had a weapons platform in it that could be harnessed by the 12 Matrices they had just finished collecting and Decellion had the key to start it up with.

He had shared the information of Decellions possession of the key with Shockwave for a purpose. He had planned on taking the battle planet for himself, and it was very obvious now that Decellion also wanted it. But now that it had the weapon, he wanted it even more and would do anything to get it.

He knew that Shockwave would use the information in a power play against him, and would find a way to override the control the Dominion had over their own mecha troops in order to make them his own and take the planet for himself, that he was counting on. But he had his own idea as well, he was going to get one of his own scientists to make a similar device to perform the same function for the Destron on Charr, as well as try to override the control system that Shockwave may put in place.

He also knew Shockwave would request his own Decepticon troops in order to get some work done for his power play. Galvetron didn't object at all to the troops being handed over but he had managed to cut off Shockwave's suggestions about who to send after agreeing to Shockwave's idea.

Shockwave had prostrated an idea to Galvetron to make it seem like it was all for the Decepticon cause, when it had in fact been all for him and his power play at Galvetrons position. Galvetron had caught on almost immediately and played along his own way. The troops he would send to Shockwave would all be loyal to him, and would be told what Shockwave was up to and what they would need to do to undermine Shockwave's plans and ensure control of the battle planet went to Galvetron instead of him.

Now all he had to do was wait. He did not know when Decellion was going to go back to Omicron to claim the planet for herself and he had to take her actions into account as well.

She no longer had her Necromancers, but she did have Dominion Destron soldiers that could be controlled. A reason why he had put another idea into action.

There were only two other people on his mind. Starscream and Optimus Prime.

One was on Earth still and the other was on Cybertron once again, as his sources there had reported the Autobot Commanders return to the planet.

Galvetron had left his old soldier alone on Earth as he had found out about the weapons platform and had decided to rid himself of not only Starscream but also the vile planet he was on with the weapon. Optimus however was another matter entirely that he would deal with in his own time as the leader was now without the Matrix.

All his soldiers had fully recovered now from their previous fight at Dragon Valley base and were ready for another fight. After he had sent one group of troops to Omicron for Shockwave, he kept the rest with him and began to issue particular private orders to a select few about the plans he intended to carry out, and had Decellion watched for when he would need to implement them.

*

Over on Cybertron, Optimus and his troops were dealing with the loss of one of their oldest possessions. Some of the few who knew about it felt without some essence of hope. And the rest felt a little different as they had heard the speech that Ella had given him before he left Earth to return to his command here on Cybertron. He had replayed it for them as he had recorded it for prosperity, in order to help him remember why he had to wait for a while before he tried to go and retrieve it, but it still didn't make him happy.

He was presently getting emotional support from his old love Elita One about it, but in times of past where he the Matrix had been removed from his possession, he didn't feel the same drain on his energy reserves that he did before.

He had asked Ella about this before leaving.

Ella, while in the company of Freefall and Sound Track had revealed that no matter where he was or where his Matrix was in the universe, he could always connect to it and it to him. Until the device unbound itself from his guardianship, they could ultimately draw strength from each other even from any distance. This was something she had told him before leaving Dragon Valley to ultimately return here to Cybertron.

Sound Track had agreed with her to strengthen his resolve as she had begun to realise the same thing about her own Matrice as had Freefall, now that their Matrices were no longer in their possession. She could feel it out there and had begun drawing power from it, even though it was now in the enemy's hands.

Ella had assured all of them though to wait for a time when the devices would be returned to them. He just wasn't sure how much longer he or his troops could wait.

This Optimus had thought over the whole time on the trip back to Cybertron as well as the time leading up to now. Breaking the news to his select few had been hard, but waiting would be harder.

He knew Galvetron and Decellion were out there and that they were probably undertaking their owns plans of universal domination, but he had come to trust Ella's judgement in the matter of waiting, as his own spark was telling him she could be trusted even if he had only known her for a short time. She also had Alpha Trion's approval so what else could he do but listen.

What bothered him though was that Ella knew about the plans that had been stolen for the weapons platform and what would be done with them. Ella had told him that it would most likely be used by Decellion for her own plans, being that she knew the Dominion were rebuilding their homeworld of Omicron into a battle planet and that the weapons platform would be assimilated into it, using the Matrices as a power source.

It had surprised him being told of this. He had questioned Ella as to why she had not acted on it when she had known about for a while. Her response was that a solution to it would come in time and she knew that no domination would come of it from the Dominion being in possession of the weapon or the battle planet anyway. She advised that he would just have to be patient and he would know when to join in the upcoming battle that was coming, just as she was waiting with her own group to get involved.

He ended up just going about the normal day to day business of running Cybertron, waiting for this battle to come, rather than going out and stopping it from happening as he usually tried to do. Further consultation with Alpha Trion had showed him that faith and patience was paramount in this short time frame and that before his involvement would come, that he should do whatever he needed to do to prepare in the meantime.

He had all their stocks of supplies checked over and replenished and also weapons supplies and functionality checked, he had his troops put through some extra training just in case, and he did anything else he could think of in order to prepare for what may come, doing more than they usually did for normal operative duties.

He also made a call through to Earth and had a long discussion with Ultra Magnus and his teams about what he was organising and what would be needed when the time came.

*


	44. Chapter 44 Lost and Found

* Lost And Found*

*

The Roughnecks, after spending some time training on Earth, had been organised by Ella to go the Dominion battle planet and infiltrate it secretly and do what they could to stop them from succeeding in any plans they had. The team members who were to go along knew that they would be in enemy territory the whole time and were at risk of being uncovered at any time or worse, death and also may be cut off from using their communications, due to risk of discovery.

But it was a risk they were willing to take.

Along with their main team, there was also a small group of Autobots who had come with them. The idea had been given to Ultra Magnus, who had decided to send along Jazz with their team to participate.

So Jazz had picked a small task force to go along with him. They included Rodimus, the twins, Hound and Bumblebee.

Peter and Henry had also opted to go along with them but as their mecha selves, Prowl and Ironhide.

One of the civilian mecha units from Dragon Valley base was helpful to the Roughnecks, he was called Touchdown, and had agreed to take them as close to where they needed to go, still within Alliance territory that he could, and that they would have to make their way on their own for the rest of the distance.

They would then do what they could for the purpose of infiltration of the battle planet and perhaps split up into small groups and get their own transport to get onto the battle planet and do what they needed to do.

*

Later.

They were all currently on a non Alliance planet spilt up into several groups, according to the plans they had to get onto Omicron separately. But ideas were passed around between them and eventually they started to form back into a central group again.

One group had commandeered a ship. Namely Jazz had cheated to win one in a local game of chance. It was not his original idea to do so but when the opportunity had presented himself he realised it could be an idea that worked.

After talking to some of the locals in the marketplace he had discovered that female mecha were in high demand on Omicron. It was information that Sound Track had given him due to the fact that the females were a suppressed lot and existed mainly for comfort companions and also for slave trading. Omicron was a male dominated mecha society and didn't respect females very well. Which was one reason why the Dominion Council did not readily accept Decellion as their goddess or ruler since things had drastically changed during her rule of their race.

Sound Track and her team were currently in hiding due to their genders and were waiting for a response back from the others as to what they would be doing.

Jazz in the meantime had collected his prize. A large cargo ship that would be big enough to cart all of them under the guise of whatever story he could come up with, and he contacted the rest of the small groups to get them together again.

He and two of his companions however had to fight off a group of locals who had been ordered by the previous owner to kill them to take the ship back after the card game.

After defeating them, Rodimus hazarded to mention, "You sure you didn't cheat to get that ship?"

Jazz replied smirking, "Well I got an idea an' I did what I had ta do ta get that ship, no questions asked ok."

"Yeah sure." Rod' replied flatly, rubbing his sore joints. "C'mon 'Bee lets gets back to our hidey hole so we can get this part over and done with!"

Bumblebee smirked. He knew Rodimus wasn't usually this unenthusiastic about fighting. It was just unfortunate that they had come across this group after securing the new ownership papers of the ship Jazz had gotten for them.

But he had worked with Jazz long enough to know that his superior officer was expecting something like this after they collected the ship. He had seen that Jazz wasn't too worried about it, but had warned him before they had gone to sign over the papers.

The three made their way back to where the others were now gathering.

Ironhide, Steelwind, Vanguard and Burnout greeted them upon arrival as they were watching the entrance and guarding the others from any surprises that may come from the local criminal wildlife in the area.

"Well?" Asked Vanguard, "So you going to tell us what this idea of yours actually is now?"

"I hate ta ask, but it's probably somethin' dangerous or worse knowin' Jazz." Vented Ironhide.

Prowl was with another part of the group and walks up to them, "But it could be something that would at least get us onto the enemy planet."

"Yer right Prowl'" He commented, then turned to Jazz, "Ok let's hear it already."

"Well my idea was to disguise the ship as a slave trader seeing as how some info I managed ta beat outta tha previous owner told me he does tha same an' all." He explains his idea to the others.

"But what makes ye think we'd go along with the idea?" Contested Burnout.

Jazz looked at her and replied, "Some of us can be grouped together to pretend to be the slaves and some others can be the crew."

"And that's where I come in right?" Piped up Flashdance, "You want me to start making us some disguises?"

"Yep!" Jazz told her. "Considering anyone else who knows engineering ain't her, you're it girl!"

"Cool, I'm on it." She looked around at some of the others.

Sunstreaker glared at her when she fixated her glance on him, "What do you want?"

"Well I was going to ask for help. But if you think your skills aren't good enough for the idea I've got in mind, then I guess I could always ask your brother?" She mused to him.

That got his attention, "No." He said flatly, "I've got way more artistic talent than that slagger'll ever have and I'll show you just how much." He replied haughtily.

"Hey!?" Remarked Sideswipe, "I heard that Sunflower." Sunstreaker glared at his brother and his name calling for a moment before Flashdance got his attention again.

She responded to him, "No problem then, let's go. Hound I need your help too ok." Both mechs followed her as they went off to find an area where they could work.

After a few hours work she fashioned several restraints made to only look like they worked when they really didn't, for those who would pose as the slaves. Hound had also helped her to make several holographic emitters to cover those who weren't able to use Bioroid shape shifting skills, and some others chose to utilise their humanoid alt forms to pose as other slaves on board the cargo ship.

Jazz and Joyride had in the meantime gone back out to get information from where they could. They needed to find a spot on Omicron where they could pretend to take their 'slaves' for trading or sale.

When they returned they passed out the information they had collected and started to finalise the idea they had in mind for their infiltration. Jazz and some of his team would pilot the ship while a few of the others would be the trade party held in mock cells somewhere else in the ship, under restraints that were fake.

Rodimus and the twins had been unhappy with the fact that they were wearing holo-emitters now to cover up their true selves, but had obligingly agreed to escort the femmes undercover as gladiator slaves. Jazz would become the trader, having Steelwind and Burnout as backup. Both the femmes were hidden under holo-emitters, hiding their true gender, being shown to everyone else as males. Prowl, Ironhide and Bumblebee would stay on the ship as part of the crew, all with their own holo-emitters under disguise, and the rest of the femmes would be utilised as a slave cargo.

Before leaving, Sound Track had taken Sunstar somewhere in the older part of the town to contact some friends whom she knew were currently undercover on the planet.

Ella had told her before leaving Earth that they were there and Sound Track was glad she would be able to use her contacts as part of the plan, but was unable to tell Jazz and Joyride before they had left to gather information and so instead decided to keep it to herself and see how that secret would play out.

She had only brought her daughter along as protection just in case; this wasn't exactly a safe area for a femme.

Sound Track had to contact the ones who were in lesser positions in order to contact the ones in higher, deep undercover ones as she couldn't contact them directly, at least not publicly. And if she used her telepathic abilities, there was no guarantee it would continue to hide her friends. She didn't know what kind of technology the Dominion used. She wouldn't know unless she was there in close proximity if they had telepathic detection technology active or not and she didn't want to take any chances.

Once she had received the information she and Sunstar returned to their hiding place with the others. She relayed the information to the others in her team who knew about the undercover agents and then joined the group in preparation to carry out their infiltration plan.

It wasn't long after that however that they made their way to the secure area where the ship was and were on their way to their destination.

*

Morgan was finally enjoying some time to himself at Dragon Valley base.

Ella and Heartia had finally begun to let him be and wander the base, but he wasn't completely alone, they left him under guard. The two who were watching him followed closely behind at all times except when he was recharging in his room, when they stood guard outside the private quarters that they had seen fit to provide him with.

He didn't like it but at least Ella and Heartia left him alone and he had time to himself to think about his memories and about his past he was remembering more of each day he was online.

Right now though he had wandered into the bar to get some refreshments.

He would have preferred to be left alone had it not been for the fact that the new commander of the Storm Wings joined him. The lilac and silver mech was familiar to him, but right now, no memories were forthcoming about him despite the fact he knew his name.

And even though Nightfall and a few others amongst his team had been remade into new body shells by Ella, he was curious about the rumour that was being passed around the base about Morgan. He was optimistic to believe that his old commander had been given the same chance to try again that he and the rest of the old Seekers had.

He sat down at the booth opposite Morgan, currently in his humanoid Biomode form and addressed the silver haired humanoid with the steely façade. "Is it really you Sir?"

Morgan didn't look up at the visitor straight away, but when he did, he just looked at the lilac haired soldier without responding. He had seen Nightfall around the base in his jet form, but had not until now even bothered to deal with him or the others of his team. But when he looked right at him then, the sudden flashes of memory came unbidden to his previously blank mind. The soldier however had a different name then than he did now, but he realised it was still the same Seeker that used to be under Starscream's command before he was terminated.

There was a battle with more than a handful of Seekers back on Cybertron in his past against a group of femme Cybertronians of some resistance group. Before they had even been able to subdue the leader of this group, she and her team had taken down and terminated four of that team of seven Seekers, including the gold, red and white one who was Starscream's younger male sibling.

The memory of himself in his mind had been furious at losing several reliable and irreplaceable soldiers. But he was disconnected to that rage now, the memory was there but the connection to the feeling was not. The person whom he knew himself to be didn't feel like how he was now at all. It was like looking at some unfamiliar face in the mirror but knowing at the same time that person you were seeing was in fact yourself.

His gaze had lowered somewhat during the revelation of his memories, and then he looked up at the soldier before him, "You were a member of Skywarp's family were you not, the youngest brother?"

Nightfall's expression brightens slightly upon the recognition of Morgan's acknowledgement. "Yes! That's right…Sir." Nightfall quietens for a moment and glances over at the rest of the former Seekers who are at the table not far from them.

Skywarp and Thundercracker glance over at the same time as they were listening in. Both get up and join Nightfall, keen to hear what else Morgan has to say, also keen to know if it is their old Commander. The two were also joined by Seastrike, Hotshot and Sunstorm, but Starscream had remained behind, scoffing at any rumours that Megatron had indeed been resurrected into this humanoid Bioroid form that they called Morgan.

Not one of them sat next to Morgan on his side of the booth, they just crowded around him. Thundercracker and Hotshot had sidled into the seat next to Nightfall, while Skywarp and Seastrike had gotten some chairs from somewhere else and sat alongside the booth. Skywarp turning his around and straddling it, and Seastrike sitting back, lounging in his. Sunstorm had opted to stand and listen on his feet, but every once in a while glanced back at his brother who was still sitting in another booth on the other side of the room with the assassin scientist Carnage and her companion, the femme triple changer Bombshell.

Morgan looked all around at the ones who were now gathered at his table and asked, "Well, what do you all want?"

"He's certainly as curt an' to tha point as our old boss ain't he lads?" Questioned Hotshot in his Irish brogue. Hotshot knew exactly how bad tempered Megatron could be as he had been on the receiving end of that temper, both verbally and physically many times in the past when he was still a Decepticon soldier. While he hadn't been as ambitious as Starscream, he was a smart mouth and did talk back a lot and often followed his own rules which got him into trouble.

Morgan looked at Hotshot for a moment and raised his brow, obviously remembering what he used to do to that mech in the past, and realising that this mech also had a different name now than what he used to, just like Nightfall did. The company of all these mechs had opened a floodgate to memories he would rather not have, being that he still didn't feel any emotional connections to the person or memories he had in the past before now. "You only brought all of that on yourself. If you had only followed orders and did what you were told at the time I wouldn't have had to put you in your place." He stated dryly.

Hotshot's expression changed from blithe to surprised, as he had clearly expected the rumours about Morgan to be untrue, hoping beyond hope that Megatron was truly gone and he would be punishment free for the rest of his life.

Thundercracker responded, "So it is you?"

Morgan looked at the silver blue haired male human. What he remembered about this one was that Thundercracker had been blackmailed and made to forcibly join the Decepticons. He had been friends with Skywarp at the time, but Shockwave had blackmailed him with the deaths of his bond mate and creations had he not joined their cause, and Megatron had kept up that blackmailing constantly to keep Thundercracker on their side, even after the family members had been killed. It had been a freak accident that had terminated them, something that Starscream had caused and not owned up to as yet, instead blaming it Autobots to save his chassis from an angered Thundercracker.

It had angered Thundercracker at the time at losing his mate and two creations, further keeping him in the Decepticon ranks, till that day in 2005 when there was that fateful battle with the Autobots, releasing him from the confines of life and Primus allowing him to be reborn again.

Thundercracker had woken up to himself somewhere in his mid twenties of human age to realise he wasn't really just an ordinary human. As a human, he felt out of place till Ella had come along and shared a revelation that made more sense to him than anything he had ever known in his life. Again in this life he had lost a wife and children to tragedy and Ella telling him who he was made him get up from the grief and keep going with his life, despite how saddened he was by it.

He eventually became a cyborg and then a Bioroid under Ella's dutiful care and came to be where he was now alongside Skywarp, who had followed a similar path to reclaiming his true identity as had the others of the team he was now a member of.

"How much exactly do you remember?" Asked the quiet black and green haired mech who was known as Seastrike.

Morgan remembered that this one was much like Thundercracker in spirit, but was insanely possessive and territorial about his personal possessions, and he was once known to him as Acidrain, a green Seeker. He also remembered that some of his other soldiers used to take his personal items all the time and hide them and watch him go ballistic to find them as their own form of entertainment, something that he never bothered to stop. It was always a fun game they indulged themselves in when they were bored, picking on the young technician and kept them from bothering him, that's why he let it happen.

"I will remember as much as I need to remember, when I need to remember it." Morgan stated plainly.

Starscream had been listening from his table and decided to interject. "If you expect us to believe you are Megatron then you must be out of your braincase! You don't look like him, you don't act like him, and I for one disinclined to even believe for a nanoclick you are him…"

Morgan's mind had wandered off while Starscream had been ranting. He listened to the mech and his emotions had started to react in some way. An emotional connection to his memories had finally started to come to the fore. He could feel something changing in his right forearm and felt rather strange.

Starscream had in the meantime gotten up and crossed the room and was now demanding a response from Morgan.

Morgan, on impulse had gotten up and held out his right arm. He looked at it while it turned black and began to shift into some kind of cannon. He could not rightly control himself, the mere sound of Starscream's vocals grated him and he reacted instinctively.

When he fired a shot from his forearm, which was now a fusion cannon. Everyone ducked for cover, not just Starscream.

When Starscream got up again and looked at the tall silver haired humanoid in front of him, he noticed several familiar things about him, the familiar steely emotionless grimace, a black fusion cannon in place on the right arm, even if it was the right arm itself right now, and Morgan's usual silver blue eyes were emanating a red glow.

"Is that proof enough for you." Morgan boomed angrily. "You are a fool Starscream and you will continue to be a fool until you accept the fact that you are one."

Starscream looked at him incredulously for a moment, then gets up and left the room in a huff, obviously feeling embarrassed now that he had been proven wrong and no one was supporting him.

Morgan sighed and allowed himself to calm down. As he sat down his system was venting and trying to cool down the weapon on his forearm that was now starting to turn back into an appendage again.

"Well that's certainly proved one thing!" Uttered Skywarp reproachfully from his hiding place in the next booth.

"What's that?" Asked Sunstorm, who was hiding in the booth behind Morgan with Seastrike.

"It's definitely him!" Skywarp had gotten up and was musing himself slightly. He had returned to his previous seat as had a few of the others. "The boss is back and Starscream's gonna get whupped into shape again!"

Morgan quietened Skywarp immediately with his deadly looking gaze and finished the drink in front of him quickly.

Seastrike had gone off at some point after that and gotten more for Morgan and the others, and they continued their conversation for some time, catching up on business and old times.

*

Ella was going over some paperwork in an office near the control room when she saw Starscream wander inside with a foul look on his faceplate and he was grumbling under his vocals about something she didn't quite catch.

She wondered what he was up to and went to see what it was.

"So who put you in a bad mood?" She asked. He caught her off guard when he turned on her suddenly.

"You?! This is all your fault!" He said accusingly as he got up and tried to tower over her.

Ella raised her brow from the accusation. "My fault? Why would that be?"

"Because if it wasn't for you and your Pit damned ideas of bringing people back from the dead then I wouldn't have just had to suffer the indignity of that pale comparison of Megatron you call Morgan that sitting with the Storm Wings in the rec room right now, being fired at and laughed out of the room by those…disgraces that now wear my Seeker team's faces and forms."

Ella sighed and shook her head. It wasn't the first time Starion had inadvertently found her somewhere on the base and given her a verbal dummy spit. She was used to it. His version of sulking involved blaming the world for everything he saw as bad for him.

She believed that in this instance he had said or done something to someone and had been proven wrong and then stormed out of whatever room he had been in at the time. Her guiding instincts weren't working as well as they usually were due to her headaches and current health problems, but she had been around enough of others with personalities like Starscream's to know that was the case of his current emotional condition.

She had also thought long and hard about what she was about to do also. The original reason she had allowed Starscream to come into her company and why she kept him under her watchful eyes till now.

She was about to let him go completely and offer him his freedom back, but at a cost. What he would have to do was join the enemy to do something for her. She knew there was a very high chance that Starscream would just go his own way and ignore everything she wanted him to do, but there was too much in her idea that would appeal to Starscream and his still evident ambition for power.

She grabbed the file she had been keeping with her, keeping from him specifically till now and put the data pad on the desk he had sat down at to begin moping.

He looked up at her and then to the file on the desk. Just out of pure curiosity he picked it up to read the device.

When he had finished reading and going over the information, he questioned her about it, being the scrutinising scientist that he was. "You expect me to do all this in exchange for my complete freedom from you and this damned hold you have on me and the confinement to this base?"

Starscream didn't trust anyone. He wasn't about to believe that he would get his complete freedom back without there being some catch to it. He would have to willingly betray Ella and her lot to do this. _'That will be no problem.'_ He thought to himself. He thought also about the information that had been on the data pad. What he had to do was far more of beneficial interest to him than being made to stay at the base where he was just an unnoticed accessory.

He had no intention of keeping his end of the deal however. He knew what the Power Matrices were, and if they had the power that was rumoured then he would keep them for himself and use it against all those who had ever stood against him as well as take his rightful place as a ruler.

Ella had provided information that Soundwave was to be his contact on Omicron should he wish to consider the deal. Starscream had also been privy to information about what was going on with the Dominion. He figured that Galvetron was probably using Shockwave to spy on the Dominion for his own reasons and that Shockwave probably had his own plans for Domination of that race or taking over Galvetron's position and Soundwave being whop the mech was, was watching all of them for his own reasons and so would be a perfect contact for him.

Ella told him, "I will hold myself to every deal on that data pad Starion, including letting you free when you accept the mission and leave here."

He smirked. He couldn't believe his luck. What had come to be a very sour day for him had turned out better than he thought, he was willingly being helped by the 'good guy' side to fulfil his own agenda of possessing power, or at least that was his view of it.

Ella knew exactly what she was doing. She had carefully constructed the means for whoever was going to fill the space of whatever person her vision had relayed to her years ago with this plan. At the time she didn't know who it would be, and now she had to take some time to organise things around Starscream so that the mission would be taken care of.

It was also one reason why she had chosen to give control of the Storm Wings at this time to Nightfall and send his mother back onto the ranks of the Roughnecks. Freefall and also Sound Track were part of this plan, as was Bonecrusher, but Starscream didn't know that. The three femmes would be in on the plan secretly to ensure that the plan was followed and to adapt to any circumstances that changed during the course of events and would be close by to deal with those changes, at least Ella hoped they would.

She hoped that everything would fall into place, but in her current condition, couldn't take part to ensure that it did, as she was saving her energy for something else that was coming.

"Well?" She asked.

He was still thinking about the plan when he answered sarcastically, "You were expecting me not to take it? Of course I'm going to do it, but I will do it my way, now hurry up and get this damned collar off of me so I can leave."

She was expecting him to react that way. It virtually told her that he was going to take things into his owns hands. She hoped that the information provided in the data pad file would give him some ideas and at least make him use some of them.

At this stage she had no choice to accept the fact he would take the mission and trust the universe that everything would work out for what was needed.

She removed the small choker from around his neck, a newer enhanced version of the one he had gotten out of previously, the original collar they had put on him when he had first arrived at the base.

He hesitated for a moment when she removed the collar. Feeling his neck and realising the freedom he now had at his humanoid digits. He could feel various programs in his systems that were previously suppressed by the collar coming back online, including the circuitry that controlled his null ray weaponry.

He smirked and aimed his hands at Ella, knowing that in this form his old weapons were energy projective.

Ella kept a flat expression, waiting. "You know that as soon as you hit me with that, the base alarms will go off and you will have to leave before security comes after you?"

"Oh I'm counting on it!" He grinned, "I've been wanting to do this for some time."

Ella did not bother to block the blasts as Starscream hit her again and again to try and knock her out. She handled the grievous pain as the blasts hit her, before finally giving into her grogginess after the fifth one. She collapsed to the floor eventually, seeing him with his trademark grin after he hit her the last time.

She had held off letting the alarm siren with her mental abilities and connection to the base computers, and when it sounded, Starscream took off on his so called mission and bid for freedom.

He had wanted to do that to her for some time, venting his frustration. There were others on the base he would have readily vented his revenge upon now that he was free, but he had more important things to attend to now that he had the opportunity to do so.

Several of the Storm Wings came racing into the control after the base's warning system had gone off and found Ella slumped up against one of the walls.

When they had woken her, she knew she had to play along and let them think Starscream had done all of the damage to get his freedom and had nothing to do with the plan she had in mind, a plan she had in place for him to take care of some business she couldn't do herself. And so they readily believed her when she answered their questions and carried her off to the infirmary.

But Morgan wasn't convinced.

When the others had left her alone in the medical bay, he stayed behind to question her. "You had this all planned didn't you?" He remarked astutely.

His abilities and memories had returned almost completely and it would now be very hard to keep him contained on the base under supervision, she thought to herself. He had began to function almost completely like his old self, bar the fact he had not yet regained his normal size and appearance yet. But his normal personality was there as was some of his memories, she could sense them very clearly as he stood close to her.

"Perhaps." Was all she said in reply.

"Perhaps? What exactly do you mean by that?" He enquired.

"Maybe you could follow along and go after him, perhaps take up your old leadership mantle and confront Galvetron and reclaim what is rightfully yours as Galvetron has control of your soldiers"

"Not all of them." Morgan responded as he spied the group of Storm Wings looking on from the balcony above the medical bay.

She followed his gaze and commented, "Well all you need to do now is regain your old form and do what you think is necessary to take back what is rightfully yours."

He looked directly at her and asked, "And how am I to do that exactly."

"At the time it happened I wasn't expecting a split between you two but it was to be expected if we ever came into contact, considering my own power base and who he is now tied to. Light against dark and all that, two opposing polarities cancelling each other out. But changing back to your old self is about as simple as thinking yourself into it anyhow, but of course that depends if you want your Decepticons back on your side again."

She stops and watches his expression. He raises one brow slightly in response to her last comment and answers her, "Now what kind of assumption is that, of course I would want my soldiers back, they are, and were, mine to begin with and will always be mine."

"Well then you had better get your old form back and then go and get them!" She mused.

He wasn't impressed with being verbally prodded, but he looked up at the group that was waiting for him and nodded to them, they followed him out of the medical bay to who knew where.

Ella had come up with her idea to slightly push Morgan in Galvetron's direction at the last second, she hadn't planned on giving him ideas to go out and reclaim what was his, but she had played on his pride about his soldiers. A coming confrontation between the two leaders would be forthcoming, she thought.

However Morgan knew he had been manipulated into his current course of action, but he didn't care, he was just glad to be going somewhere that wasn't within the confines of this base.

*


	45. Chapter 45 Surprise Attack

* Surprise Attack*

*

In the regions of space, the Dominion had completed the battle planet conversion of their home planet Omega. They had endeavoured to turn it loose on an unsuspecting Alliance, but already knew that the completion of this project was now public knowledge to the Alliance Military and that they would have their hands full trying to fight the Armada that would be sent their way.

The Dominion's intention was to use the main weapon to blast right through the Alpha planet's core. They knew that without the Alpha system's main planet, the Alliance would not last long, that the order the Alliance so craved would deteriorate very rapidly without their central political metropolis. And it would fall apart into the depths of the history pages as the Angellion had, being defeated by their ancestors the Devillion in times long past.

All they had to do to claim the power and territory they wanted was to pick up the pieces afterwards.

But they also knew of something else that was coming their way. Due to the timely arrival of a new comrade they didn't expect to join them, who had given them some interesting information to help their cause.

*

The ship that the Roughnecks and their Autobot entourage had been on, on route to the Omicron battle planet, was ambushed upon their arrival.

Most of the group had been captured or imprisoned, and a few had managed to escape and were hiding out biding their time amongst the Omicron mecha populace until they could come up with a rescue plan.

At the moment though, all ideas were proving useless getting any where near their friends as the prison sector of this planet was very heavily fortified, and those still free were running out of time as other events around them were beginning to happen.

*

In his quarters from inside the Charr citadel, Galvetron had some news that had just reached him from his Decepticon agents stationed on Omicron.

The news of Autobots being sighted and captured on Omicron as well as some of the Earth bound Deltronian femmes. This information alone was enough for him to send out an order to have his battle ship refuelled and ready to go as soon as was possible to go and see this for himself.

The other news that was disturbing was the reappearance of a Decepticon warrior that he had tried to terminate before, had yet again returned. Starscream had reared his head casing, somehow managing to get past the defences of the Omicron planet and plead his case to the council and pledging his allegiance to them, where he had come from he didn't know.

Right now he was so frustrated and angry he could feel the rage boiling inside his fuel lines, under his armour plating. But he had realised by now that wasting his energon on killing Starscream was a lost cause, so he turned his attention to other matters.

His other plan of infiltrating the battle planet with his soldiers in a seemingly workable alliance with the Dominion mecha was coming along, and it wouldn't be to long before his coup could be administered.

There was the other matter of that femme Decellion. She was at present still toying with him with her passive aggressive mind games.

He had some ideas about how he would dispose of her once he had what he wanted. And those wants included the Power Matrices that could power the battle planet's weapon with devastating results, as well as full control of the battle planet itself that he intended to power up and drive it to Cybertron space and destroy the planet while the bulk of the Autobot Forces were still on it. All he had to do was get the Dominion council out of the way.

Soon it would be time for him to give the order and allow his Decepticon soldiers on the Omicron planet to take action.

Decellion on the other hand knew exactly what he was planning and went along with it wholeheartedly, using him and his soldiers to the utmost to do the work for her, as she had a similar idea to Galvetron and also wanted the council out of the way to take the planet for herself.

She was also one of the very few who knew the combination to the area where the Power Matrices were being kept. But even if she changed the combination on the locks to stop either him or any of his agents from getting the Matrices, this wouldn't stop him, not with his plasma cannon, but he did not want to risk damaging the fragile devices as he direly needed them for his plan to succeed.

Decellion had figured he may have her watched but couldn't be bothered finding out who. She realised that although the devices were locked up to protect them from just anyone trying to take them, their storage place wouldn't stop Galvetron from getting his servos on them, no matter where they were, so she did not attempt to change the combination locks to their safe storage place.

She just waited and watched till everything she was waiting for was in place for her own plans.

*

Deep underground, in what could be considered a prison, was the place where the Dominion Military of Omicron put away all their troublemakers, criminals, rebels and just in general people they didn't like, both mechanoid and organics of all types.

One of this prison's prime Medics was slightly mad and also intent on using any available being, whether they be mechanoid or an organic, in his experiments, as he figured himself somewhat of a creator and a scientist also. A warped, self-righteous being with delusions of grandeur to Godhood.

At the moment the Dominion soldiers had taken away a female mechanoid transformer from the group this individual had been brought in with.

For now the medic had been working with interrogators, watching them to get this mechanoid to speak but they were not having much luck. This was why the interrogators called him along, pulling him away from his experiments to deal with some pretty little thing who had decided she would not talk to them and reveal her secrets.

Sunstar had had very rigorous battle training and had a very high pain threshold, but it wouldn't hold forever. They had been chipping away at her for half an Earth day already, beating her till her armour had cracked in several places and her beautifully sculpted faceplate was barely recognizable under all the beatings from her interrogation.

It wasn't until the Medic decided he would try something and he was left alone with the femme that she finally cracked and screamed for all her vocalisers were worth.

And it was this screaming that made other prisoners who heard her cringe, her friends especially knowing they could do nothing to get to her or save her from the torture she was now suffering.

The screams were also waking up others who had been offline till now.

"Ugh..." said one groggily, "What hit me?" It was Sideswipe. In the explosion that had hit their ship, sending it careening to the ground of the battle planet, he had stood with Jazz to try and fend off the Dominion invaders when they had landed more or less, but he and a few of the femmes had gotten cut off from the rest and he didn't know what had happened. He had gotten his leg badly injured in that battle and couldn't walk on it, finally succumbing to other injuries and going offline.

"Nice of ya ta finally join us!" Mused a weary and beaten Jazz.

"Primus Jazz!" Exclaimed the dented Lamborghini, "What happened to your hand?"

Jazz's hand had been hurt by the crash and had been mangled even further through interrogation by Dominion soldiers. "I could say the same about ya leg 'Swipe." Jazz smiled trying to ignore the pain his hand was causing him; he didn't want to elaborate further about his injury.

"It's what's going to happen to the rest of us, one by one if we don't get out of here." Said a familiar voice at the back of the cell, belonging to someone Sideswipe couldn't see. He knew it was his brother but he figured he was either brooding or hiding in the dark for a reason. Knowing Sunstreaker, he thought, his paint job had probably been ruined and he didn't want to show himself, but due to the fact he wasn't whining about it, then there must have been something else bothering him.

As he looked around the cell he noticed that everyone had been through the ringer.

His arms were grabbed and he was hoisted onto a rusty old cot that had seen better days by Jazz and Flashdance.

When his scan of the room ended, his optics fell on Flashdance. She met with his optics and commented, "Well ah did what ah could with what ah had available." She had sat down again after helping him up and was now slumped against one of the walls cradling a pink form on the floor next to her.

Sideswipe could see that it was Joyride, but she appeared to be in some sort of shock as she just lay there curled up staring at the opposite side of the cell.

Flash' noticed this and said, "She got tortured for info lahke most of us have had done already. Seems you got left out 'coz you were offline, but ah wouldn't think they'd leave ya'll out of their interrogations now that ya're up an' all." Flashdance tried to comfort the femme by putting her hand on her head but she was as still and her optics unflickering as ever.

Sideswipe shuffled as far to the end of the cot as he could to where he knew Sunstreaker was. He tried to reach his brother through their private link, but the golden warrior had sealed it tight and wouldn't talk to him.

Sideswipe had been out of it and had not known that his brother had already been taken and tortured brutally by the Dominion interrogators. Sunstreaker had sealed the bond to stop his brother from feeling his pain at the time and now the yellow Lamborghini was sulking in the back corner where it was darkest as his paint job was scratched up to the point of him having hardly any yellow paint left on his torso as well as being burnt and peeling on some of the armour plating of his limbs, not to mention his face had been cut up by the sadistic soldiers that were present here. He had not been able to do a single thing to stop them. Most of his energy he had left after it was forcibly drained from him, had been used in sealing the link to his brother to protect him.

Sideswipe had managed to get a brief glimpse of his proud brother's looks in a flicker of light reflection from somewhere and suddenly felt bad for him. Sunstreaker returned a look that spoke volumes to his brother but still did not open their link or attempt to reach out to his twin either physically or emotionally.

Vanguard was watching the looks between the two and added for their benefit, "He didn't even cry out once. But we did hear he gave them quite a fight before they finally got him down and tortured him like the rest of us have suffered."

Sideswipe looked around at the white femme in a cell a couple of rows down with a large and battered silver femme called Steelwind along with Hot Rod and Freeway.

It seemed all of them had suffered in some way or another after being captured. But he turned back to his brother and didn't want him to suffer alone. He tried reaching a hand out to put it on the shoulder of his twin for comfort but all he got was a guttural snarl and the yellow Lamborghini retreating further into the shadows, obviously wanting to be left alone.

"If it weren't for the fact mate that we've all been drained of our energon to keep us under fuelled and passive I'd be stormin' in there right now to help out Sunstar?" Announced Steelwind.

"Ah know Steel' ah can't even think properly with mah energy as low as it is. Ah can't even begin ta think what Burnout's goin' through. She needs much more energy than tha rest of us ta function and there's no natural terra-thermic conduction for her ta absorb any more from around here, this planet is all mechanical."

"And she's been gone for hours. I haven't heard her scream or make any noise. Where'd they take her and what are they doping to her?" Called out Bumblebee from the cell next to them.

The small yellow minibot shared his cell with a dented Ranger, a worn out and beaten Hound and a very battered Tempest on the floor offline. She had been drained near completely to stop her from using her abilities as well as suffering the indignity of having a restraint collar on, which most of the rest of them had also.

"So who was able to get away?" Asked Ranger wearily. She was too tired to even lift her head to check.

Vanguard answered, "Well Stella and Rusty are having the Light only knows what done to them right now, judging by Sunstar's fuel solidifying screams, and our first and seconds haven't been seen since the crash, so I think Freefall and Sound Track got away. As well as the fact Henry and Peter are gone too." She was clearly worried about her bondmate as it showed on her faceplate and hoped they were all safe.

Flashdance chuckled and sighed, "Knowin' mah sistah, she o' course would be tryin' every which way ta get in here ta get us all out. From tha mission reports ah get ta read they been in an' outta here the Light only knows how many tahmes getting' out operatives whose cover has been blown."

"But this place always changes." Vanguard added. "I noticed a fair bit of restructuring since the last time I was shoved in here on one of those said same rescue missions your sister and Freefall were sent on by the Alliance council."

At that comment Flashdance slumped in despair from her usual cheery self. "So uh…Jazz, what ya'll think tha' rest of tha Autobots back home are doin' right now?"

Despite his pain, Jazz smiled. He knew she was only asking to take her cognitive processors off the dreadful situation at hand. He hoped that wherever and whatever their still free comrades were, he hoped they were working on getting them all out, as he was fresh out of ideas right now, and rather low on hope.

*

Sound Track and Freefall were indeed working as best they could to rescue the rest of their team as well as the Autobots. They had not expected to find Prowl and Ironhide either but find them they did. The two femmes had had a tougher time hiding themselves due to their gender, but it had not taken the two resurrected Autobot soldiers long to find them with their homing beacons.

When they had discussed their ideas and Sound Track had suggested she go on alone to the prison, the two mechs objected. Prowl spouting the logic that she would have a better chance of getting in and out of there with a backup, despite the fact he knew what her level of skill was like. And Ironhide badgering her to be that backup. He had decided it would be better for Prowl to go along with Freefall as she was to go and deal with some espionage that he wasn't very well equipped for, but Prowl's intelligence was.

She gave in and let Ironhide accompany her, while Prowl and Freefall went in another direction for another mission to infiltrate the Dominion Citadel and get more information on the council and its plans, hopefully getting help from undercover Alliance operatives that she had contacted previously before arriving.

It was these same contacts that had risked their undercover status and contact her after she had landed. She was not game to respond to their hails while she was on the run, but only did so when she deemed it was safe enough. She had discovered that Decellion and Galvetron had arrived on the battle planet with the Matrices in their possession that they had stolen from them previously, as well as the fact that Starscream had turned up and joined the Dominion.

She had gotten this information as Freefall had first found her but had not shared the fact of Starscreams presence here now on Omicron with the two ex-Autobots. She and Freefall after all had been privy to a vision that Ella had had but had not known who it had pertained to until a private message had reached them from Ella as they were departing for this mission.

As Sound Track watched the headstrong flyer go with Prowl, she remembered the old days when it had been Freefall in command of the team she now had control of, back when she was younger, and now the roles were reversed.

Sound Track also knew that Ella had played one of her cards and now Starscream was in place allied with the Dominion council. She had thought the ex Decepticon soldier would go crawling back to Galvetron, but he had instead gone to the Dominion council, and had by now no doubt, revealed information about Ella and her base and its residents to use as leverage to his advantage, which left her and her team at a distinct advantage should they now cross paths, the enemy possibly knowing more about them than they should.

Sound Track decided to not worry about it for now as she had other matters to attend to.

In times past she'd had to find different ways into the prison cells each time she had to come and rescue imprisoned comrades from this Light forsaken place. The walls and structure seemed to shift itself every once in a while, but they never returned to a previous form, it was always something new, more efficient. That was the thing with mechanical planets, she thought, they were always shifting and changing to adapt to either the life that was on it or the function it needed to serve, and so it was continually updating itself.

*

The mecha captives had been whiling away time trying to stay online in turn so as to keep their optics on each other should more guards come and take their friends away to be interrogated or should one of them get the chance to escape.

Many of them had had ideas about ganging up on and subduing a guard in order to get out but all were too weak to do anything except wait for their inevitable termination at the hands of these dastardly people keeping them captive.

What they didn't expect was a visit from the Decepticon Commander himself.

"Well I had heard a rumour that there were some Autobots in cages where they belong around here somewhere?" One of the Decepticon soldiers behind Galvetron, Ramjet, jested.

Galvetron looked over the paltry and disheartened condition they were all in and then he turned to the Councillor that was not too far behind him. "If you are done with them all then I want them turned over to me as per our agreement that any Cybertronians are to be left for me to deal with directly." He said flatly.

Previously when Galvetron had arrived, he had demanded that any and all Cybertronians that were captured by the Dominion were to be turned over directly to him and that anyone else the Dominion could deal with freely. The Councillors had not agreed at first, thinking that Galvetron with his arrogance had forgotten that it was them who were the ones in power, but they let the deal be made as they deemed these Cybertronians inferior to them, no matter what side they were on, and if Galvetron wanted them then he could take them and himself and stay on Charr where they could later have them in one place to destroy them with the power of their battle planet. Right now they were just waiting for Decellion to install the matrices in the Battle Planet's weapons drive and then they could be rid of that femme and this Decepticon leader and his entourage of soldiers.

"That is not a problem Galvetron." Prostrated one Councillor, trying to look more superior than the Commander, "As you can see with your own optics, this lot have been contained and subdued; however further questioning has proven futile by our interrogators. Perhaps you will have better luck."

Galvetron just looked at the Councillor and nodded to several nondescript Decepticon soldiers who had accompanied him to start removing the captured Autobots.

"However…" The Councillor interrupted when one Decepticon soldier attempted to remove the femmes also. He put his cane out to stop the soldier from moving them. "These females are ours. You can do as you wish with the Cybertronians but the females are all Deltronian and are not part of our deal and therefore will stay here to do as we please." He looked suggestively over the femmes that were close to him. "They will make good slaves once their sparks are broken in to serve only the Dominion."

Galvetron could not help but sneer at the Councillor as his back was turned and he made a mental note to kill this disgusting mecha when his business was done. For now, keeping this vile politician functional along with the others he despised was to the benefit of his plan. When the members of the Dominion Council were no longer required then he would dispose of them all and be left with his prize, the battle planet he was now on.

But what came next was a complete surprise to them.

Sound Track and Ironhide had gotten into the base after all their trouble but had reverted to their human Biomodes in order to make use of a lot of the small hiding spots all around them. With his help Sound Track and Ironhide had set many charges and a few of those had started to go off.

This however had started to attract attention elsewhere as well as in the corridor where Galvetron and the Councillor were standing.

In the chaos that ensued, many of the Autobots who where were already in manacles being accompanied to a Decepticon transport, were able to get away and take cover. This was where Ironhide came in. He reverted back to his mecha form and collected who he could, giving out rations of energon and passing around keys to the collars they had on that Sound Track had previously stolen for them.

Sound track had separated herself from Ironhide so that she could deal with the femmes of her team. The guards had already closed their cell doors when the commotion had started and the Councillor and his protective guards had left rather quickly so he wouldn't be harmed.

Galvetron however stayed, surveying the situation and once he spotted Ironhide and the weapons he was handing out to _his_ escaped prisoners, he started looking around at his soldiers. "Well don't just stand there you fools, start firing, don't let them escape!" He Bellowed.

It was fortunate for Ironhide and the other Autobots that they soon found cover and started their return fire. Ironhide had already ordered someone to stay with Sideswipe so the red Lamborghini would stay down and out of the way as he still had a badly damaged leg that he was unable to walk on. The best that Flashdance had been able to do in the cell was to stop fluid seepage and cauterize the wounds, but she was unable to fix it to help him at least limp on it. So he was left being carried by Sunstreaker who was not currently enjoying being out in public so to speak and being seen with his paint job ruined, but fought back while at the same time ensuring his brother was well protected.

"Stay down!" He had to caution him yet again.

"Oh so now you want to talk to me?" Sideswipe retorted ruefully.

This earned him a glare from Sunstreaker. "I said, get down!" Sunstreaker shoved his brother down to the ground, flat on his back to narrowly avoid being missed by a laser blast from a Decepticon soldier. Both twins were now sprawled out on the floor behind their cover.

Sideswipe glared back at his twin, "Just because I have a bung leg doesn't mean I can't shoot, now give me a gun, I'm gonna get that slagger for shooting at me."

The yellow twin couldn't help but smirk as he handed over one of his guns and brought another out of subspace for himself to use.

While Sideswipe was shooting at any Decepticon he could aim at, he commented to his brother without looking in his direction, "You know Sunny, you look like slag!"

Sunstreaker replied also without looking at his brother, still firing on any Decepticons stupid enough to get in his line of fire "So do you pitspawn, but hey at least when we get back home again and get fixed up, I can do something about it. You on the other servo will always look like slag."

The two glared at each other for a moment, looking for all the world like they were going to start beating each other, but then suddenly Sideswipe just bursts out laughing and says, "Good to have you back bro'!"

Sunstreaker smiles and continues to shoot with equal vehemence at any enemy that comes their way.

Back at the cells, Sound Track in her Biomode had climbed down from her hiding spot and returned herself to her robotic form as soon as she was on solid ground. She didn't have any keys to unlock the cells as the guard who had them had left in a hurry when the Councillor had run away in cowardice, and now the corridor was empty as everyone had left for the laser fight elsewhere. But this didn't stop her, she used her frosty abilities to freeze the metal and then shattered each lock in turn to open the doors and free her team members.

She had accounted for all but two of them. "Where are Burnout and mah daughter ya'll?" She addressed them. Using her telepathic abilities, she discovered that her daughter and Burnout were being held elsewhere, probably being tortured or beaten into submission for information, as was the Dominions modus operandi with prisoners. She grimaced at the situation and then started subspacing small canisters of fuel for them all as well as keys for their collars and their weapons she and Ironhide had stolen back from the weapons lockers before coming here.

"Vanguard?" She called out to the older white femme.

"Yeah."

"Ya'll take everyone out o' here. Ah'll deal with tha other two. Get everyone ta Ironhide, he has knows an escape route."

"Not a prob' boss lady." Vanguard turned to the femmes that were all present and shouted, "You heard her, let's go!" All of them started to move off except Joyride and Tempest who had to be carried due the condition both were in.

*

Elsewhere.

'_Cyclonus to Lord Galvetron, come in Sir.'_

Galvetron was not too happy to be interrupted mid battle, especially since he had a good chance of terminating several Autobots, ones who had been shrapnel in his side armour for eons.

"Yes, what is it Cyclonus, make it quick." He said as he answered his comms.

'_Sir, a contingent of Autobots have just arrived. They are being led by Optimus Prime and are apparently accompanied by a group of Seekers who are not responding to any hails. These Seekers are being led by…well…'_

"Well what Cyclonus, tell me now." Galvetron yelled.

'…_They are being led by a mechanoid that looks like the spitting image of Megatron, just as you looked during the great wars of Cybertron. How is that even possible Sir when I am talking to you right now? I don't understand.'_

Galvetron ignored his question and clicked off his comms unit. He stopped firing for a moment and then ordered the soldiers directly near him to follow him back up to the surface to investigate Cyclonus' claims and see for himself what this was all about. He left Ramjet in charge and ordered him to find and recapture the Autobots before he headed off to the surface.

The information that Cyclonus had brought to his attention was enough to drag him away from this fight and run to another.

*

When the momentary lull had come, that was when Ironhide ordered everyone underground into the tunnel that Sound Track and himself had come in through.

He managed to help about half of them through when Ramjet had started pushing the other Decepticons forward, effectively cutting him off from retrieving the twins from their secure hiding place.

But it wasn't long before shots were fired from behind them and Ironhide saw the white armour of Vanguard through the smoke and dust.

"Hi!" She waved cheerfully from her defensive position. "Did you miss me you old bucket head!"

Ironhide pursed his lip components and shook his head, "Cain't ya shut yer yap and jus' git goin'?"

He pointed over to where she saw Bumblebee disappearing down a hole in the floor and then proceeded to lay some cover fire to help her group and the twins follow along. It wasn't long before all of the Autobots were down the escape tunnel and also all of the Roughnecks who had escaped the cells with Vanguard.

Eventually Ironhide and Vanguard joined the others after creating some cover for their escape and hastily joined the rest of the group who were already some distance up the tunnel. They had been successful in getting into the tunnel without being seen as far as they knew, as the halls of the prison were thick with smoke from all the traps and smoke bombs Sound Track had set before they had made their move.

They had already proceeded down the tunnel a fair way when Ironhide asks Vanguard, "So where'r the others?"

"Sound Track opted to go after Burnout and Sunstar and get them out herself."

Ironhide understood the blue femmes reasoning. It was better for the bulk of them to try and get out with all the diversions going on, rather than wait for all of them to get out at once. He was disinclined to leave anyone behind but realised it was a necessary tactic on Sound Track's part, the femmes she went after were her team members after all.

For the moment he walked with Vanguard at the rear of the group, creating a buffer should they be followed by any Decepticons who may have seen them enter and come after them, trying to get past Hound's illusion at the tunnel entrance. He looked over the group and had noticed that all were in less than perfect condition and it was going to be very slow going.

"So how long we goin' to be down here mate?" Asked Steelwind, slowing down to join them at the rear of the group.

"As long as it takes fer us ta git outta here ah guess." Answers Ironhide. "At least Hound can still use his holograms ta hide our escape route whahle we slowly git tha rest o' ya scraplets outta here." Something else Ironhide wasn't happy about. Leaving Ranger and Hound behind near the tunnel entrance to help cover their escape, and to also help Sound Track if she happened to turn up with her two missing team members.

Steelwind just smiled kindly at the old Autobot soldier and then returned to the rest of the group walking up ahead.

It was Ranger's choice originally to stay behind for Sound Track. Hound had offered to stay with her and assist with creating a holographic projection to keep the tunnel safe from intrusion.

Ironhide had disagreed about leaving Hound behind, but Jazz persuaded him that it was a good idea and he let it go and joined Jazz and his group in their tunnel exodus.

Back at the tunnel entrance, Hound and Ranger did not have to wait very long though.

Up above they had heard some scuffles and laser fire as the Decepticons were still milling around looking for them in the chaos, but were as yet unsuccessful. That was until Sound Track turned up and aggravated them, or at least they thought it was her till they heard Burnouts familiar Scottish drawl and the sound of laser fire dying down after the femme had most obviously taken several Decepticon soldiers out.

The two transformers down below could feel the blast of a burst of intense heat up above before all went quiet and then Sound Track and her two companions came down into the tunnel.

"All is well I presume?" Ranger sees her team leader had her daughter slung offline over her shoulder plates.

Sound Track could feel the concern in Ranger's voice. "She needs medical attention ya'll and some energon. If we can get her fixed up first, we might be able ta help tha others too with her nano healin' skills."

"And what about you Burnout, were you not tortured and interrogated like the rest of us?" Asks Ranger curiously.

Burnout grins in the way she does and replies, "Do ye have te even ask me tha' question Lass!"

Ranger sighs and says, "I should have known!"

Hound finally pipes up and comments, "Since we are all here and accounted for I suggest we try and catch up with the others up ahead.

*


	46. Chapter 46 A Mechnapped Femme

*A Mechnapped Femme*

*

It had been several months since the escape from the Omicron planet of the Roughnecks team and their Autobot compatriots and many things had happened.

While the Alliance had managed to get a foothold in the battle since the arrival of a new force for the Dominion to deal with, in the form of Megatron who was now fighting to not only have all his Decepticon soldiers returned to him, but also fighting to rid himself of what he saw as a rival to his power and someone he wanted out of the way due to his past experiences with Galvetron, at one stage once being one and the same being.

An all out one on one battle was brewing up between these two.

Also Optimus Prime had been cornered and overwhelmed during one major fight and the Dominion had made off with his Matrix of Leadership, adding one more Power Matrice to the collection they had. He was now being cared for under secure supervision on Earth, under the watchful optics of his former CMO who had returned to full time active duty amongst the Autobot roster.

The Dominion fought strong against the continuing efforts of the Alliance. But they didn't fight quite that hard enough. The Dominion claimed the last of the Power Matrices they needed for their Battle Planet and despite this the Alliance were the ones losing their foothold for now.

This had the Alliance worried as to what their first target would be, but many of their strategists had predicted that the Alpha system would most likely be the first target, as it was this that the Alliance projected its power base from and it was this that would cause the Alliance the most harm if their main planet was done away with.

The good thing for them was that they were right in their assumptions of the Dominion wanting to go after them, but bad that they were without the secret weapon that they had hoped to use to provide the system with a powerful shield to deflect the blast that the Battle Planet would project.

Ella, in an effort to try and get all the Power Matrices together had willingly watched and manipulated events in order for her to be subdued and captured by the enemy. She had waited some time already for this to happen, despite the fact that it was the enemy that had gathered them. She knew it was only a matter of time for them to be in one place for her to retrieve them and so she let herself be taken to them, rather than go get them herself or wait for them to come to her.

On the Omicron planet in their citadel, Decellion, once being in possession of the Matrices she was after, went into the council buildings and slaughtered all the councillors herself. She had promised herself that when she had got what she wanted, she would rid herself of the bane these councillors were, so she could move ahead with taking over the planet, which she did so with aplomb, then move onto her target of destroying the Alliance, something else that was a bane to her existence.

After gathering the last of the Matrices, she decided it was about time to remove her own and add it to the collection. Her own was the black Matrice of chaos. Up until now she was loathe to add it in just in case there were any problems and she was separated from its power flow. She did not want anyone else possessing its power, nor did she want to share any of the other Matrices with her apparent partner Galvetron or the Dominion council that was now out of her way.

The thing was, Galvetron had plans of his own that did not involve her being alive. He knew about her Power Matrice and knew that she would eventually remove it. When its energy pattern was removed from her and returned to its solid state, it would make her vulnerable. Even though she still had access to the power of this old orb, having it separate from her body made her vulnerable also, turning her back to her normal operational status. At least that is the information he had managed to gain.

His Communications Officer, while watching the Council of the Dominion elders, was able to find information pertaining to the history of the Power Matrices and the effects they had on their bearers. For quite a while Galvetron had been wondering how to deal with Decellion, and a slight smirk reached his lip components when he had learned of this information.

With that situation settled, all he had to do was deal with that traitor Starscream and those Decepticon warriors, some who had once been under his control, had since deserted him.

Starscream had fled the moment he realised his compatriots amongst the council were going to be slaughtered by Decellion. Realising he no longer had a place to hide or others to protect him from Decellion and Galvetron, he returned to the people who had given him his last sanctuary. But it only led him right into the servos of one mech he had run from to begin with, Megatron.

The former Decepticon Commander knew of Starscream's traitorous history and dedication to himself, but he knew the mech would be useful in facing down the threat of Galvetron, this was the only reason he had taken him back into his fold. Needless to say, the small group of Seekers he had under his wing were none too impressed when Starscream was appointed their Air Commander once again, but they accepted it and made no complaints about Megatron's choice of actions.

Nor did they object to others who had once been under the leadership of Galvetron, return to Megatron's side.

*

Inside Battle Planet, Decellion was readying the system to integrate all 12 of the Power Matrices, integrating their energy patterns and absorbing all their power into the Battle Planet, so that she could then destroy them afterwards and stop the Alliance from ever retrieving them.

Galvetron knew of her intention to try and lead the mobile planet towards the Alpha system in the Alliance to destroy it, but he had other plans. He wanted to be rid of Cybertron. Not only for the fact the planet disgusted him, but there was something else, another darker aspect of himself that wanted the planet destroyed. Right now he did not fully understand the source of this darkness but he took it as intuition that it was what he needed to do and so set it in his mind to accomplish and then move onto Earth.

But first he had to wrest control of the Matrices from Decellion and find a way to do away with her while she was vulnerable. Doing so would be hard enough as she had stopped being so blatantly over confidant about being alone. She now had the Dominion guard with her at all times since she had taken over control of the Dominion forcibly from the council and getting past them to get rid of Decellion was going to be the hard part. He needed to be careful about how he could remove those soldiers from her presence while trying to keep damage of his soldiers down to a minimum, while at the same time trying to persuade them to join him and bolster his own numbers.

And that was where Shockwave came in. Before Soundwave's defection back to the side of Megatron, this Decepticon Military advisor had seen to it that he would stay as he thought it the most logical decision as this was where the power was for now.

But also because he had pledged a renewed loyalty to Galvetron, even after Megatron's re-appearance. It would be Shockwave's duty to find a way to get between Decellion and her personal entourage, and assist Galvetron with ridding himself of her.

And this was where it all started.

Decellion had installed all the Power Matrices but had locked the room with a coding system that Shockwave was finding hard to get to. She had also posted her Dominion soldiers by the only entrance to the room when she was working at setting up the power grid.

In order to be able to get to the room when he needed to he struck a deal with Decellion to help her overthrow Galvetron in exchange for his co-operation with her weapon preparation, little did she know that they he was working under Galvetrons instruction and when given the order, he would take down the protection protocols of the room and allow Galvetron complete control of it.

Galvetron was also aware of the fact that Shockwave may betray him for his own ends and so kept a watchful optic on both him and Decellion continuously.

Right now he was watching Decellion in the command centre where the energy of the Matrices would be channelled through and controlled from. She was inputting the programming of the command protocols for the energy distribution for the weapon into the Command Centre computers.

"When is this powerful weapon of your going to be online and useful Decellion?" Bellowed Galvetron. "If we are going to attack and destroy the Alliance planets then we had better up our pace. Their forces are on the offensive." He was trying to mask his intention of taking over the weapons control to take care of his own plans first before the Alliance.

"No need to worry Lord Galvetron." She stated sweetly, abhorring every nanosecond of appearing subordinate to him, "We will have this planetary cannon operational very soon and it will only be operational from this centre." At least that was the idea she was giving Galvetron.

"Hmph." He mumbled under his vocalisers. "Well while you are doing that I will go and see how our 'guest' is doing." And he left.

Galvetron knew she would try something duplicitous and so he would just get one of his own programmers to check over the controls when he got back to the control centre.

Decellion did not turn to face him, but knew who their guest was. She had wanted to torture Ella as soon as she came into their custody, but getting the power grid for the planetary cannon was more important as far as she was concerned and she also knew that there was very little Galvetron could do to stop her having her way with her old enemy once she was able to confront her in her own time. It was just that right now she had to monitor Galvetron, she knew he was up to something, she had to be even more wary due to the fact she was more vulnerable at this present time, being separate from her Matrice unit and not having her full compliment of personal guards to accompany her everywhere.

On his way down to the holding cells Galvetron and his entourage were unaware of the mechs hidden in the shadows that had come to pay a visit.

After having failed to infiltrate the Omicron planet unknown the first time, they had however been successful this time around, using a much smaller force.

Sound Track and Freefall had gone in again in the same stealthy manner with which they had hidden from Dominion sensors and infiltrated the prisons the first time when they had successfully mounted a rescue party. Only this time they had others with them, Thundercracker, Jazz, Skywarp and Prowl.

Prowl and Freefall had been unsuccessful in their attempt the first time around to do some damage to the place and set some charges but they were successful in uploading vital information to an external server to allow the Alliance to retrieve information from the Dominion Battle Planet for their own purposes, which was giving them information about the battle planet and an advantage in the war now going on.

Prowl and Freefall had returned to finish their job with extra support. Only this time they had Thundercracker as extra backup should it be needed. Being that this time around, the former Decepticon Seeker now had the added skills of being a programmer and an algorithmic decoder, and he would come in very handy if they needed to get around some systems to fulfil their mission.

The other team consisted of Jazz, Sound Track and Skywarp and they were elsewhere on the battle planet but not too far away from the first team.

Jazz was just quietly looking around a corner ensuring that they would be able to get where they were supposed to go. He had come along with Sound Track in order to get back into the prison cells again. Sound Track had to get there a different way again as her path had shifted, but she was adamant she would be successful, and Jazz just did his own thing and followed the leader, but he was still none too excited to have Skywarp watching his back. Previous experience with the former Seeker made him wary.

"Ya know I would've preferred to go along with my sister." Whined Skywarp. The Seeker, since discovering his relation to his once deceased sibling, spent most of time in her company now when the war didn't get in the way. Freefall may not be the same mecha but just as Skywarp had been reborn, so had she.

Jazz was unsure how to take Skywarp now. Sure they used to be enemies, and for the most part Jazz didn't trust him, but it was getting on his nerves that this usually standoffish and overbearing bully of a Seeker was being so frank with him, like they had never been enemies in the first place.

All he could do was shush the seeker as he put his arms out to flatten them both against the wall where they were hiding, hoping they weren't seen or heard. Once the guards had passed he turned to Skywarp and said, "Dude irregardless o'tha fact ya wanna just chat with me now like there's been nothin' b'tween us b'fore, you gotta shut up or we'll be discovered ok."

Skywarp gave him a look that told Jazz that inside his head he was still the same old Skywarp, and he guessed if it wasn't for orders that he was now following from Megatron, Jazz could have been caught off guard and easily taken down by the bigger stronger mech.

The only reason Skywarp was along because his own telespatial relocation abilities had evolved somewhat and he would be able to get them all out of something happened to make them abandon their mission. All he had to do was lock onto any of their signatures and teleport out, not even needing to be in their place to get to them, just willing himself to them and then shifting them to a safer location.

Jazz was reluctant to take his attention off Skywarp but he got a comm. from Sound Track. She had wandered off to find somewhere to get in and had sent a message back to them both that it was safe to come to her position. Jazz checked the vicinity and gestured to Skywarp to follow along.

*

Out in space, several planets of the Alliance had already started to set up defensive lines with all manners of warships and other space faring crafts even while the war was going on. All the planets that did not have defensive lines were put on alert in case of attack, and most of those went underground to protect themselves but still they did their part and keep in contact with the other planets in order to assist the war effort of bringing down the Dominion and to inform everyone of where the Dominion was advancing.

Many military groups from many different planets were here for the battle. And some were rather worried about the effect it would have on morale because of the knowledge of the Dominion's Battle Planet would have now that it was operational. But they all did their part and held their ground with the space fighters they were now facing.

The Dominion had never been in possession of such a weapon before and most of the soldiers were prepared to give their lives to protect the freedom that the Alliance garnered with all the planets under its protection since the Alliance treaty had first been established.

Nova Duragano, Ella's mother, had returned to the Alliance and put herself before the High Council. She had been a member of their ranks once before but couldn't take the restriction to her freedom and so had bowed out. But in doing so she had lost part of herself. As a member of the council, most of them were actually living holograms, beings of light, all with their own personalities and structures, all highly evolved beings. She too had been one of them but had willingly chosen to take her existence back on this physical plane of reality and had not regretted her decision since, shifting her body back into her current techno-organic form.

But with the looming war she needed to be where she would be the most useful, at the forefront of the Alliance Armed Forces that she had once been a Battle Commander of that army a long time ago. Nova hoped that her experience in that position would allow the council to make a decision to let her return to it or give her a position similar to it.

Some of the Alliance's best teams were out in force in several places preparing for the upcoming war they knew would be coming, training and gathering supplies for defence purposes, getting any areas close to the potential war zone of Alpha Central ready for evacuation.

It was lucky for them that this area was full of planets that wouldn't leave anyway. They were the types of races that would adamantly fight to the death to keep their freedom at the expense of their own deaths of their race's extinction.

This was one thing that the Alliance council was debating today. The planets in the Alliance who did want to fight against the ones who were neutral and the ones who flat out refused to fight at all, and would rather try to settle it with diplomacy or straight out talks.

Many of these were newer planets to the system and did not realize that the older parts of the Alliance had tried these things before with the Dominion only to have it thrown back into their faces with declarations of war from both the Omicron and Omega system of planets in the past.

The Dominion was only interested in returning their glorious heritage back to the fore. For a long time after the Angellion left their original home, the Devillion who had been left behind in that Galaxy, took over everything.

Part of the Angellion force of the time stayed to fight and gave their lives so that the rest of their race could escape to survive, this was what had led to the legend of the Matrices, the spirits of those who had fought had been retained inside the Matrices that were once part of the mecha units that those ancients once fought with. This was what Ella was trying to recollect. The cores of those units that were now representative of powerful, and it was why the others were trying to get her out of her captivity to help her retrieve those same units.

Being alone in her cell, Ella was able to think back on some past events while she had the time to herself to do so. She hadn't been left in terribly good condition as she was being continuously tortured for information, and in order for her to keep her place here amongst them, she had to take all the beatings and the invasion of herself and her mind.

She thought back on the Ancient Angellion.

Many went to different areas of the universe, some even settled in the Milky Way galaxy, after they had let the first Alliance go. But of all the places the Angellion race went to they influenced their new homes. Many had also taken the new creations with them a billion years ago, they were called the Cybredian. Having been hunted down by the Devillion and losing the fight, many Angellion retreated to the other planes of existence and left the Cybredian behind, these becoming the ancestors of the modern day Bioroids, these had evolutionary superiority over their genetic cousins. It was these Bioroids that took up the Matrice mantles. But some did choose to stay behind and fight the Devillion, which led to their downfall and the Dominion rising in their place some time later.

The last major war between the Dominion and the Alliance saw the scale evenly balanced. The Dominion, built on the remnants of the old Devillion race, fought with their own type of Cybredian warriors called Destrons, and also their own type of Bioroids called Necromancers, which were introduced to the war millions of Earth years ago. It was this war that Ella had participated in and helped to lock away Decellion and incapacitate her Necromancers. But it didn't last long as she had found a way back to them. Ella was hopeful that what she had seen would mean she would not have to confront Decellion but let her be destroyed by her own plans.

The Cybredians themselves were a techno organic species, originally created for a various purposes. They had an animalistic, yet humanoid dragon-like appearance, and had great metamorphic and psionic abilities. Though not all had these skills, genetic potential within the individual usually brought out these abilities, or contact with the outside world away from their natural forest like habitats, usually the older or more experienced they are, the more power they have. They were a great asset to both sides of the war at the time and as many retreated into anonymity after the last few wars, the Matrices that were entrusted to them also disappeared. But some passed into the possession of Bioroid species that took up the fight from their Angellion ancestors and fought to reform a new planetary alliance.

Many Bioroids had been of great assistance to the young Alliance made up of many alien races throughout the first wars as they had proven their usefulness with piloting mech units. This is where the Bioroids evolved from. Constant use of specialized talents made them more humanoid and more streamlined for combat than their wilder cousins, becoming the ultimate power source for the mech units they piloted throughout the Alliance wars, but their existence was indeed a very rare commodity and one that was always sought out by the Dominion. Seeing as how their Necromancers were forcibly and genetically altered from Cybredian by their dark sciences.

One lot of Bioroids that had evolved from the Angellion through one genetic strain of the Cybredian, settled on Sigma nearly 50 million years ago after that war then, and remained there till they were apparently wiped out about 30 million years ago on that planet, supposedly by the Dominion. This was yet another part of the war that Ella had fought Decellion in.

But Decellion returned, and with the subsequent return of her Necromancers were eventually able to track down the Matrices and retrieve them from their hiding places as well as gain possession of the ones that weren't being protected or hidden by the old Cybredians.

*

Nova had finally gotten her answer from the Alliance Head Council and she was relieved that she would be able to relive her glory days of fighting once again. She even went so far as to call her old companion Bonecrusher and her team to her side from the position she had been allowed to work from.

Bonecrusher had decided to stay close to Nova's side, as had the rest of her team under their commander's orders. Grimlock and his team had been fighting very closely alongside the Dinosaurers mostly, and for reasons known only to himself, Grimlock had also ordered his team to stick around for more fighting.

"Ok people, mechs, listen up." Said Nova loudly. "We've gotten word from the Alliance. It's been made official. We are going to war. The Dominion has set themselves up near the borders of the Alliance with their new siege engine. We've been given leave to set up shop close by to…"

Nova was unable to finish addressing her plan to the others as Grimlock had interrupted. "Me Grimlock have better idea. Me Grimlock and Dinobots go fight and win war while others stay here." The Dinobots all murmured in agreeance.

While Nova just cocked her head, "Really! And just how are you going to do that if you are in the infirmary?" She had noticed Bonecrushers tail whip around Grimlock's mid section. It had been so quick that even Grimlock had not seen it until it was too late. The other Dinobots had to be held back to top them attacking Bonecrusher as a result of her actions.

Nova wasn't too worried about what was happening. Bonecrusher and Grimlock quite often played around like this lately, she had noticed that a slight relationship was forming between them lately and so she left them to their quarrel while she finished addressing everyone else that had been left to her care.

*

Ella had been in her mecha form when Galvetron had insisted the prison guards let him into see her. She was in a different yet more secure section than the one the Roughnecks and Autobots had been in before and it was harder to break into.

Galvetron was none too pleased with the fact that the mad scientist who ran the prison areas had taken it upon himself to bar all but himself from seeing any prisoners and Galvetron was rather pleased with the fact he had found that Scientist and showed his displeasure. Leaving him in a crumpled heap in his office and then continuing on to the cells with no objections from any guards.

Ella was being suspended from hand holds from a side wall and trying to adjust her sore spinal array from her latest beating when Galvetron came upon her.

They had made contact for some minutes before he finally spoke to her. "And what pray tell my dear makes you think that you and your so called Alliance will be successful in defeating either myself or the Dominion?" He said with confidence.

She did not answer, but instead played a staring match with him. It was some time before he got bored with hitting her, trying to force her to answer his question. In frustration he eventually left her to her devices, grumbling about her inability to be of any threat to him despite the reputation he had heard she had. He also had to leave due to the fact he had been called back to the Command Centre by Scourge over some drama that was now enfolding outside the Battle Planets outer hull.

Sometime after he left, Ella had waited till the guards had turned their attention away from her still and seemingly powerless form before she sent a message through to a small area above her cell that she had been secretly observing, keeping all the attention in the cell upon her. _'What took you so long.'_ She telepathed to Sound Track.

Up above the cell, it had taken some time to get into but they had managed to do it. Sound Track had utilised Skywarp's teleporting ability to remove items in order to build a tunnel for them to escape through. It would enable them to free Ella from the cell from below them. She had been careful not to choose integral parts of the walls and systems around them that would not alert the Dominion to their presence at this location. An alert so close to Ella's cell would surely bring more than enough soldiers on top of them than they wanted or cared to deal with for now.

Sound Track wasn't relying on his capabilities completely and wanted a physical escape route in case it was required for them. She had known the Dominion to possess technology in the past of disabling mecha abilities, many occasions where she had been stuck and had to improvise herself out of tight situations.

Jazz was the smallest of the three and he was able to get down into the cell with no trouble to free the large white female from the manacles on the wall. Once he helped her off the wall, she leant on him due to her lack of strength and her wounds, but once she reached the spot where Jazz had come down, Sound Track was able to reach her easily and pull her up.

While waiting for all that, Jazz had gotten a little worried about the noise outside the cell. He used his exceptional hearing to find out that the soldiers were doing a changeover of shifts and that Ella's cell would be checked soon.

When he looked up and motioned for Sound Track to hurry up, he motioned his hand to the cell door. She glanced at the sound outside the door straight away and leant down as far as she could go while having Skywarp hold her peds so she could pull up Jazz's more diminutive form.

She was just able to get Jazz settled and seal up the aperture in the ceiling when the soldiers opened the cells door to check on Ella. Sound Track had been grateful for the fact they had opted to put her in a sealed darkened room, or they would have had to get her out the hard way by creating a diversion elsewhere.

'_That was close!'_ Mouthed Jazz when he made optical contact with Sound Track.

She made a gesture to cut out any thinking just in case they had scans out to find them as some other soldiers were now scanning the energy in the cell to see what had happened. The small team were lucky that Sound Track had been hiding their energy emissions with a dampener.

She silently gestured to Skywarp to begin their evacuation. While she was monitoring the soldiers and their scanning, she had sent a silent message to Freefall and her group to let them know Ella had been retrieved but they had not yet gotten out. It was not safe for them and Sound Track wanted to 'port to Freefalls location to get out of trouble. It was lucky for Sound Track that the answer she had gotten back was an affirmative.

Freefall's team had accomplished their own mission and had found themselves a safe place big enough for all six mecha if need be, they were now only awaiting pickup, so Skywarp eagerly complied and teleported to their location.

It had not been long before Sound Track had hacked the communications systems of the command frequencies and had discovered that an attack was in progress by several Alliance forces and other group around the outside of the Battle Planet.

*

On the outside of the Battle Planet, those same forces were trying to make their presence known.

Most of the cities of the Dominion planet had been cyberformed to be able to be retracted below the new hull, but the Dominion council, before their demise had only evacuated everyone under the surface and retracted their own areas for their own safety, but it hadn't protected them from their destruction from within by Decellion.

Various battles were now taking place in and around the surface as well as some forces of the Alliance now being able to break through to the surface underneath and begin their infiltration.

The virus that Freefall and her group had inserted into the Battle Planet's mainframe through the terminal they found, would now start to affect several systems randomly and would keep some of their programmers busy trying to chase the virus while the rest of the soldiers would be kept busy fighting the Alliance elsewhere.

Ella hoped that this would provide her with an opportunity to get into where ever they were keeping the Matrice units and retrieve them all before Decellion could harness their power for this siege engine.

When she had the chance to recover slightly she went over her plan with the members of the Roughnecks who were still aboard one of the Alliance ships close by. Those that could, freely joined her, among those included Sound Track, Freefall, Sunstar, and Steelwind. The rest of the team were directed by Sound Track to be led by Vanguard in providing a distraction from the area of needed.

The only thing they needed to worry about was to keep out of Megatron's way as he was hell bent on finding Galvetron and confronting him one on one.

*

But Galvetron wouldn't be too easy to get to.

Right at this moment inside the control room of the Battle Planet, he was having it out with Decellion. The diplomacy between the two mechs had broken down and in the chaos that ensued due to the viral attack in the computer systems, a power struggle between the two had broken out, and supporters of both sides were not only defending themselves from both sides of these two but also from the Alliance that were infiltrating everywhere else.

The chaos was something that Shockwave was counting on when he detected the virus in the computer system as it was being uploaded. He had decided not to do anything about it as he calculated that the ensuing problems it would cause would get both Decellion and Galvetron out of his way while he accomplished his own plans.

And that's why, when he able to, he made his way down to the room where the Power Matrices were kept.

*


End file.
